Your Contact Center is a Hotbed for Customer Engagement: Here’s Why

When a brand delivers great customer experience, customers are more likely to establish a positive connection and long-term loyalty towards that brand.

Given this, most companies spend countless hours and resources looking for ways to improve customer experience strategies. However, the customer experience is only a part of the equation.

Every day, company representatives interact with customers and, within those interactions, your brand has the opportunity to foster customer engagement.

Engaged customers are not only likely to purchase more over the course of the relationship, they are more likely to spread positive sentiment about your brand – essentially becoming advocates. Therefore, having a strong customer engagement strategy is key to long-term growth and success, and a solid program starts with the contact center.

In his book, Igniting Customer Connections: Fire Up Your Company’s Growth by Multiplying Customer Experience and Engagement, Anthony Frawley defines customer engagement as “the actions that the customer can take, including buying, posting, tweeting, liking, following, referring, and more.” Engaged customers really are your brand’s best friends.

According to Influitive, “Companies that have improved customer engagement increase cross-sell by 22 percent, drive up-sell revenue from 13 to 51 percent, and also increase order sizes from 5 to 85 percent.” Now, imagine the opportunity that lies within your contact center if you improve customer engagement – even incrementally.

The customer engagement opportunity reinforces the importance of every phone call, email, or chat session. If contact center agents aren’t prepared, or the company is not measuring contact center interactions and outcomes, your customer engagement strategy is not likely to yield the returns you want. For more than 10 years, Calabrio has helped brands of all sizes pave the path to superior customer engagement and, through this experience, we’ve found the right combination of consulting and contact center technology to help your brand turn customers into advocates.

Analytics, Analytics, Analytics

Did I mention analytics? While many brands employ analytics technology in the contact center, not all are getting the value that they’d hoped – and it is often rooted in application. You can use analytics to see how your customers prefer to communicate, identify concerns or complaints, or understand any product defects or changes that might be needed. If you’re analyzing the data correctly, you’ll be able to stay ahead of the curve and solve problems before they become bigger. When you are proactive, especially when it comes to resolving issues, it sends the message that you care, which will help reinforce that customer connection.

The Agent Experience

Engagement starts with a brand’s ability to make personal connections with customers, and if your contact center agents aren’t excited and engaged, then customers won’t be as likely to share positive sentiments with friends, either on or offline. Take the time to learn what your agents want, measure and understand what agents are doing well, and celebrate success. Through measurement, you can identify best practices and roll them out to the entire department. If agents feel valued and are given the tools they need to succeed, then your front lines of communication will unlock a massive opportunity to foster customer engagement.

Share Those Insights

Contact center information should never stay within the walls of the department. Often, customers may share opinions about things like product design and marketing campaigns, and they may request new features or administrative changes. All of this feedback helps your team design a better product, service, and overall customer experience, as well as identify upsell and cross-sell opportunities. When customers see that their voices are being heard, they are more likely to refer your brand and become advocates.

Want to know more about getting the most out of your contact center? We’re here to help.

Tom Goodmanson

Tom Goodmanson, President and CEO of Calabrio, has more than 20 years of experience leading fast growing dynamic software and technology companies. Since assuming the CEO position in 2009, Tom is credited with reinventing the company and its culture around a strategy to expand value and reach through new, innovative products, and remarkable customer experiences. Addressing the market need for simpler solutions to complex customer interaction challenges, Tom’s vision to redefine the standard for software ease-of-use has been instrumental in making Calabrio one of the fastest growing companies in the industry.