One school of thought in call center interactions is that if a customer contacts the call center, the business is already losing. The implication being that most people call only when something is amiss – to resolve a billing or shipping problem, or to find an answer to a question about the website, a bank statement, or a patient portal.
Avoiding these types of problems before they occur – and thus reducing call center volume – is certainly a worthwhile goal and one reason why brands seek to build a complete, contextual understanding of a customer. With a real-time, accurate, unified customer profile, brands deliver proactive, relevant, and personalized experiences that ideally optimize a customer journey, increase customer satisfaction and ultimately lessen the need to contact the call center.
Increase CSAT Scores with Data Readiness
But there will always be calls, and a more optimistic viewpoint is that call center interactions are a golden opportunity for a brand to create a positive experience – regardless of the reason for the call. Every call is a blank slate, and a chance to increase the overall customer satisfaction score (CSAT), a key metric in assessing call center effectiveness.
An important capability for helping call center agents raise CSAT scores through relevant, personalized experiences is data readiness. Data readiness first creates and then activates a real time unified profile across the enterprise, which includes making it accessible to the call center at the moment of engagement.
Data readiness provides agents with a complete, accurate, and timely unified profile that is both right and fit for purpose. It can help increase CSAT scores by letting agents know everything there is to know about a customer. With real time insight into a customer journey – details of the most recent browsing session, the status of every order, preferences, transactions, appointments, updated loyalty points, lifetime value, etc. – agents provide a relevant experience that reflects the real time, contextual understanding.
One recent study shows that a personalized customer experience (CX) can lift CSAT scores by up to 15 percent vs. generic marketing.
The Real Time Difference
For instance, a customer contacts their healthcare insurer with questions about a co-pay. If the number is recognized and connected to a unified profile, the moment the call is connected the agent has the most recent statement and plan information and is able to answer the customer’s questions without having to ask for basic information. If the customer is overdue for a preventive screening, an agent might offer scheduling assistance.
In a retail setting, an agent instantly sees the status of an open order, as well as the customer’s transaction history, average spend, and lifetime value. After providing the customer with an updated estimated delivery time, the agent makes amends for the late delivery by offering a discount on a complementary item – an item the customer viewed on the website just minutes before the call.
Data Readiness is More than Data Quality
In each example, the importance of real time in a call center interaction is clear. First, the ability to recognize and match the number to an existing profile in real time puts the agent on an equal footing with the customer. The agent has basic information – name, account information, etc. – that saves having to ask the rote questions that often end up with a frustrated customer on hold. Second, real time access to the updated profile – which itself is in real time – is what allows an agent to proactively resolve issues (close a preventive care gap, make a relevant offer).
The importance of a real time element in call center interactions illustrates why data readiness is so much more than data quality. While data quality is an essential component of data readiness, data quality alone is not enough to interact with a customer in the cadence of a customer journey. A unified profile that is accurate, for instance, does not mean it’s complete. The exclusion of a recent browsing session may even be the difference between satisfying a customer with a hyper-relevant experience, or creating CX friction by perhaps offering a discount on a product the customer just purchased online – at full price.
Data quality ensures accuracy. Data readiness helps ensure usability in the moment that matters.
Data Readiness and the AI Experience
As brands transition to an increasing use of chatbots vs. live agents for routine inquiries, routing purposes, or to even schedule a return call from a live agent, data readiness takes on an even larger role in ensuring a positive CX.
Just like a live agent, a chatbot needs access to a complete, accurate unified profile, particularly for anything beyond the most routine tasks. AI is only as good as the data that fuels it, and for a chatbot to deliver a personalized CX it should have access to the same information as a live agent. In a Dynata survey, 76 percent of consumers said they would disassociate with a brand if they received a disjoined AI experience.
Whether handled by an agent or AI, every call center interaction is a chance to deepen customer trust. Data readiness makes sure you’re prepared to turn those moments into lasting loyalty. To see how the Redpoint Data Readiness Hub can help you increase CSAT scores with real time engagements, click here
