Did you know? AI is now a new trend that offers a mixed bag of risks and benefits. Here’s what customers expect when you use it. AI is almost everywhere now; between our digital assistants, chatbots, virtual assistants, automobiles and recommendation engines across many spaces such as medicine, finance, insurance, manufacturing, marketing and entertainment.

Now, AI is spread even more into the healthcare, customer service and financial sectors to inform healthcare decisions, help customers resolve customer service issues, talk with us as companion bots, make financial decisions, drive autonomous cars and help employees make more informed and faster decisions. Many brands are already using AI and will use it more often as time goes on. But do their customers trust those brands’ use of AI?

Consumer Trust in AI Is Variable
Most of our customers are rightfully concerned that AI may pose the risk of being used for wrong or evil purposes. Artificial Intelligence has been featured prominently in so many science-fiction movies usually with negative influence. AI has been incorporated into the human consciousness and many consumers are hesitant to trust the use of AI in their daily lives.

That said, consumer trust in AI, at least when it comes in the form of chatbots, is still fairly high. A report from Capgemini showed that 54% of customers have daily AI-based interactions with brands and 49% of those customers found their interactions with AI to be trustworthy. That trust isn’t limited to just customers — employees also trust their interactions with AI.

The Importance of Transparency in AI: Explainable AI
The complexity of most AI and machine learning (ML) applications prevents most people from understanding what is going on. Even those who are part of the development process may be unable to understand all but the parts they are working on — the AI seems to exist in a “Black box” of mystery.

The complex nature means that AI is making decisions in real-time based on the insights it has discovered in the data it has been fed. AI allows people to understand how organizations use AI and machine learning (ML) to make decisions, predictions and insights and enables brands to be transparent in their use of AI applications, which increases user trust and overall acceptance.

It is useful for companies to look at AI through the lens of business capabilities rather than technologies, supporting three important business needs: automating business processes, gaining insight through data analysis and engaging with customers and employees. AI technology benefits big and small businesses as it helps them grow, ensures smarter decision-making and transforms the field of management. But how exactly does AI affect the business world?

Explore further and find a list of 10 ways AI can help your business grow.

10 Ways AI Can Help Your Business
1. Boost revenue with product recommendations.
2. Chatbots for enhancing customer service.
3. Create the best content marketing strategy.
4. Sentiment analysis to gauge customers’ emotions.
5. Powerful competitive intelligence.
6. Sales forecasting to grow your business.
7. Optimize your price.
8. Smart cybersecurity.
9. Create delightful In-store experiences.
10. Save time and reduce costs.

AI is not only for global tech giants and leading companies. AI is for every future-oriented business that aims to grow and stay ahead of the competition. How exactly you will use AI, depends on what your business is trying to accomplish. Make better decisions more quickly, offer transparency and explainability to create better buyer experiences.

With our AI chatbot, you get to do all three easily and in real-time whilst building trust in your customers’ hearts. Discover how Accordia chatbot can help you achieve.
 

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Source: https://www.cmswire.com/customer-experience/do-your-customers-trust-your-ai/utm_source=cmswire.com&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=cm&utm_content=nl-daily

For the past five years, Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and conversational AI have gained exceptional popularity, becoming top investments for companies helping to streamline productivity and efficiency in their offices while inviting better customer-employee experiences. Among the other benefits of RPA implementation together with conversational AI are process improvements, customer satisfaction, reduced costs and automating mundane tasks related to the business.

So it’s no wonder that, according to Gartner, organizations will be able to run 25% more tasks without human intervention by 2023. The idea of autonomy is achievable by using automation for front office, critical operations, infrastructure and data processing.

Customer satisfaction increases when automation takes place and followed with improved efficiency, effective sales and customer service. Front office automation can help by gathering customer data, responding to and updating customer inquiries or complaints, registration and security checks are often completed by a human, front-office team member.
RPA can complete these tasks with great speed and accuracy, vital for all other operations to serve customers efficiently and effectively. Two intriguing things about automation; it motivates employees to become more involved in their roles and within the business while enjoying the benefits of no monotonous tasks, fewer errors, reduced transaction costs and time plus better customer service experiences.

How Can Automation Improve Front Office Productivity?

1. Enhance Customer Service Experience
Brilliant customer service is essential to your business success and sustainment. Customers depend on and desire a seamless experience across any channel’s communication efforts. They expect you to extend great support, fast responses and simple solutions. With emerging technological advancements, customers these days are fond of quick responses to inquiries. Automation makes it easier to deliver the results customers want. The desire for fast response has led many businesses to invest in RPA and simulate human-customer communication. Automating repetitive tasks helps us achieve faster results, shorter wait times for customers, clear communication and consistency across all channels leading to greater customer engagement and satisfaction, better productivity, reduced costs, fewer errors and faster resolution for customers.

2. Improved Communication and Collaboration
Automation in the front office can encourage better communication with customers and other team members. RPA is deployed and instantly works by sending out automatic alerts or notifications. Companies can preconfigure these reminders or notifications and then employees can follow up with customers when needed or desired by the customer.
With these automated notifications, companies can inform customers of new products, services, or offers/deals on existing products. Excellent communication is vital for understanding customers’ needs, desires and opinions and position an organization to better foster these relationships. When communication is seamless, consistent and in-depth, opportunities arise for all parties involved.

3. Lead Nurturing
Keeping customers informed, happy and engaged across their buyer’s journey is the most challenging yet rewarding part of sales. To increase close rates and shorten sales cycles, it is vital to nurture sales leads with the best and most accurate information to ensure that customers are fully informed and understand the solutions, value and frequently asked questions before the sales team contacts them.
Automating the lead nurturing process ensures that all leads are attended to and followed up, all while delivering the right content. Companies can systematically and automatically track rates of engagements and send out additional content at the critical stage of the sales cycle. Automatic lead nurturing can eliminate some types of sales pressure, enhance efficiency, cut costs and allocate time to more valuable sales process elements.

4. Improve the Sales Order Process
The entire sales order process can be challenging. It involves various stakeholders and departments (including sales, customer service, finance, and analytics/logistics). It can involve
many applications, customer relationship management (CRM), enterprise resource planning (ERP) platforms, business processes management, accounting software, approvals, and workflow exceptions.
Sales orders are traditionally processed manually, which is incredibly slow, mundane and inefficient. A lot of time is wasted, and unexpected delays can reduce profits and annoy customers, resulting in loss of business. By automating order entry, your company can boost sales and marketing efforts, keep track of business growth and reduce the costs of manually performing these tasks involved in the sales order process.

5. Make Tangible Improvements
Without an implementation strategy, these automations can fall flat. The entire point of automating your front office is not to do things entirely, but to do things better. Employees can save vast amounts of time by not having to do the mundane tasks and can spend time doing more important ones. Front office automation can create improvements in that area first. Automation is incredibly accurate, which streamlines tasks and delivers the correct information to the right person, in the right department much faster. This frees up more time to focus on business growth, revenue, and innovations within the organization.

Communication and collaboration with the back office is vital. If both front-office and back-office tasks are automated, things can be done faster. They can take the customer service experience to another level and unify a business’s customer service protocols. Automation enhances team member engagement and productivity within the company. Improves retention to lower the total cost of ownership and improve a team member’s overall experience. It allows businesses to provide guidance, automatic approvals and coaching or training across multiple channels.
Collaboration between the front office and the back office ensures issues are resolved and experiences are personalized for customers. Automation can shorten the time it takes to address customer questions or concerns and it’s crucial to front office success.

Automating the front office can save your business money, enhance productivity, and improve the customer service experience. By implementing RPA and conversational AI such as a chatbot, team members are spared the tedious tasks and can focus more on customer-facing operations. Discover what a chatbot can do for your constant biz growth, placing a huge impact on customer satisfaction, responsiveness, and smarter customer service. Here’s more info on the benefits they offer.

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Source: https://www.druidai.com/blog/how-to-automate-the-front-office-for-improved-productivity

Did you know that the CRM software can provide a wealth of benefits for your small business, from customer retention to increased productivity? In this article, small business owners and marketers will learn about the benefits of CRM software for small businesses and how CRM is used to gather customer interactions in one central place to improve CX and satisfaction.

“CRM is one of the world’s fastest-growing industries, expected to grow at a rate of 14% between 2021 and 2027.” – SAP
The Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software has become an important tool for businesses of all sizes. The software can provide several benefits to any business. Here’s a checklist of how CRM systems can help your business.
Dive deeper.

11 Ways CRM Can Benefit Your Business
A CRM solution can be used in various ways and provide numerous benefits to your business. Here are 11 key benefits a CRM could provide.

1) Better customer service.
2) Increased sales.
3) Improved customer retention.
4) Detailed analytics.
5) Higher productivity and efficiency.
6) Centralized database of information.
7) Managed communication with prospective leads.
8) Improved customer segmentation.
9) Automated sales reports.
10) More accurate sales forecasting.
11) Streamlined internal communications.

Key takeaway: The benefits of CRM include increased sales, detailed analytics, automated sales reports and better customer retention.

Lead nurturing can be a difficult process but it doesn’t have to stay that way with many opportunities to communicate. A CRM automatically manages the process, sending your employees alerts when they should reach out to the prospect and tracking every interaction, from emails to phone calls.

One great benefit of CRM is that you can view your customer’s journey holistically and what’s more intriguing? With every phase in the design and email, you sent out reviewed, you can quickly figure out the next move to make. It’s like viewing it from the top view and you can easily create a decision on what to do next. With the Zoho CRM Integration, you can create customer journeys and experiences into smarter and easier ones. Discover how our comprehensive cloud contact center solution can help you do just that.

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Source: https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/15963-benefits-of-crm.html

What if there’s another opportunity waiting for you to step into it? These days, technology has placed a huge impact on almost all aspects of life and education is no exception. Or is it? In some ways, education seems much the same as it has been for many years.

Modern tech is reshaping the entire education system and together with previous conditions of disease appearing worldwide, most universities have taken their classes to the next level. The lectures in higher learning institutions are digitally empowered as the internet is made available to everyone. The same goes for the processes and operations happening in the education sector.

Technology has profoundly changed education. Tech has greatly expanded access to education. Up-to-date, massive amounts of information; books, audios, images and videos are available at one’s fingertips through the Internet with opportunities for formal learning available online worldwide. Access to learning opportunities today is limitless, thanks to technology.

The best of the crop include the opportunities for communication and collaboration which have also been expanded by technology and tech enables forms of communication and collaboration undreamt of in the past. Now, universities can collaborate with their dream biz partners using tech-based tools. Tech is a very powerful tool that can support and transform the education sector in many ways which include coming up with new ways for people to learn and work together, making the student recruitment process easier and ensuring lasting students to recommend their peers a place to study together.

It will be up to you and your workforce to make the most out of education while adopting new solutions so that effective and efficient collaboration takes place, student enrolment process run smoothly, data management is secure with education being available to everyone everywhere.

Take part in the future of innovation+ education + tech = inneductech. Learn more on how our cloud contact center solution integrates with Zoho CRM to redefine the activities and strategies needed to reach potential students, track sales plus implement best practices on recruiting students. Find out further.

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Source: https://www.outlookindia.com/website/story/feature-how-technology-is-transforming-the-education-sector/396082

The News Article

My Say: Malaysian start-ups set to shine as regional stars
Amiruddin Abdul Shukor
The Edge Malaysia

Dec 16, 2021 | 13:30 pm +0
It is generally accepted that our domestic market of 30 million consumers is relatively small. As such, any business with ambitions to become a market leader must look to scale up regionally or globally.

For start-ups, the ultimate achievement is to be acknowledged as a unicorn — which means the company is valued at over US$1 billion. It would be an understatement to say that it is difficult to become a unicorn by solely depending on our local market; it is almost an impossible feat.

Malaysia’s first unicorn, Carsome, achieved the status this year after acquiring a substantial stake in Australia-listed iCar Asia Ltd. It also has a presence in four countries — Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and Singapore — thus boosting investor confidence, resulting in successful Series A, A2, B, B2 and C funding over the years from international investors.
Similarly, Malaysia’s two other unicorns — AirAsia Digital and edotco Group — also have a strong regional presence. The AirAsia brand has always prided itself in connecting Asean, and has now diversified its business from aviation and is set to be a key player in the e-commerce and delivery space in Southeast Asia.

Telecommunications infrastructure services company edotco Group has a presence across Asia — in Malaysia, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Pakistan, Laos and the Philippines — with a portfolio of more than 41,000 telco towers.

Paving the way for local start-ups to tap vast markets

Knowing the importance of regional expansion, and executing it, is what sets apart successful start-ups from their less ambitious peers. We know it is not easy. But it is crucial to our tech start-ups ecosystem that we provide them with a platform to grow and launch from.

For this reason, the Malaysian Global Innovation and Creativity Centre (MaGIC) has been running more than 20 global and regional programs for start-ups with value creation of more than US$400 million (RM1.7 billion) since 2015. This includes the Asean Centre of Entrepreneurship (ACE) Initiatives, Global Accelerator Programme (GAP), e@Stanford and Startup Exchange to propel start-ups beyond Malaysian shores.

The e@Stanford programme witnessed the participation of 118 startups, including Dropee, Leaderonomics and Plus Xnergy, and resulted in a value creation of US$110.2 million.

Through ACE, start-ups have access to initiatives to help them grow their business regionally. To date, three start-up exchange programmes have been conducted with Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam with a 43% expansion success rate.

Another key programme under ACE is the Global Market-Fit Programme (GMP), which is designed for start-ups ready for expansion or commercialisation (TRL 6 or Series A above). Through GMP, we aim to propel them to the next stage, in particular regional expansion.

When launching into a foreign market, our start-ups expanding alone could be more vulnerable in dealing with the nuances of an unknown market. Key challenges are usually a lack of understanding of regulations, language barriers and infrastructure support, among others. Navigating the inherent competition in the market of entry is another key area. With established networks forged by government agencies such as MaGIC, some of these risk factors and hurdles can be lowered. It really is ultimately the survival of the fittest. There have been successful Malaysian start-ups that have expanded regionally, and we believe there are more that can do the same, given the right support.

Penetrating the Great Wall of China

Last year, through the GMP, MaGIC facilitated 17 start-ups to go to Taiwan, India, Berlin, London and Budapest, through which several participants signed MoUs and NDAs with potential partners in these new markets. MaGIC continues to monitor and provide assistance related to the growth and development of these start-ups for a period of 24 months.

Last year, Rentguard won the Outstanding Startup Award by Startup Terrace in Taiwan, while Ira Noah, Zapzapmath and Astariz Ventures signed MoUs with partners in India.

This year, the GMP’s focus markets are China, the US and Indonesia. The focus on China, in particular, is natural, given its large domestic market and rapid growth. We also kept in mind that we focused on Taiwan last year, which has positioned itself as the gateway into Mainland China.

The exposure to China has produced early results, with three MoUs inked recently, signaling the start of a collaboration between Malaysian start-ups and their Chinese counterparts.

In the GMP with China, MaGIC collaborated with TusStar, China’s largest technology incubator with more than 300 locations across 70 cities. Its parent company, TusHolding, is a diversified science and technology holding group that holds US$30 billion in assets under management and is the largest science park operator in the world.

China is a hotbed for start-ups, as one of the fastest-growing and technology-adopting countries globally. In spite of travel restrictions due to the pandemic, and with TusStar’s guidance and assistance, some 20 business-matching sessions, involving more than 50 Chinese companies, with more than 200 rounds of evaluation, were conducted this year.

The Malaysian start-ups that participated in them included MyWave, Accordia Global, AOne Schools, TixCarte, Vencubator, Athletes for Athletes Solution, Urban Mobility Moovby, KelC Creative and NeuXP.

Opportunities near and far: Tapping Indonesia and the Silicon Valley

While China attracted nine start-ups, Indonesia attracted 15, and the most recent programme with the US attracted 10 start-ups. The GMP with Indonesia saw MaGIC collaborating with PT Ruang Kreasi Berdaya (KUMPUL), a premier digital entrepreneurship ecosystem builder. Empowering entrepreneurs in 70 hubs across 32 cities, KUMPUL will help Malaysian start-ups access Indonesia’s consumer market of 273.5 million people — more than nine times Malaysia’s population.

The early results are six Malaysian start-ups signing agreements with Indonesian partners — Anak2u, BIIB, Ejen2u, My AOne Learning, DF Automation & Robotics and IGG Arena Esport.

In the GMP with the US, which is ongoing, MaGIC is collaborating with US Market Access Center (US MAC) and Pixel Play Ventures (PPV). US MAC is a tech accelerator in the Silicon Valley. PPV is a venture capital management corporation registered with the Securities Commission Malaysia, focusing on investing in rapidly growing early-stage companies that fit its ethical venture-build philosophy.

Building a commercial pipeline of intellectual properties

Access to capital funding and new markets as well as market insights and collaboration with local partners are key factors in accelerating the growth of start-ups to become regional and global players.

We do acknowledge that not all start-ups are successful. In fact, the global success rate of start-ups averages at about 10%. And for that reason, we need to start with a larger base. The Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MOSTI) has set out to create 5,000 new start-ups with a commercial working model by 2025. But MOSTI’s plan does not stop there.

Quantity is not sufficient. If we are to hit our target of five unicorns, we will need quality in abundance. To this end, it is pertinent to fast-track commercialisation and enhance the participation, investment and collaboration in research by and with the private sector. A multi-stakeholder collaboration between the government, corporates and innovators is crucial to ensure sustained success.

We want to build a sizeable bank of intellectual properties (IPs), with a view that IPs will become an invaluable commodity. But IPs only have economic value if we are able to commercialise them. We have to unlock the economic value of our ideas, our knowledge and our IPs to propel Malaysia towards becoming an innovation-driven and knowledge-based economy.

This is where MRANTI — the Malaysian Research Accelerator for Tech and Innovation — plays a key role. Applying the quadruple helix partnership model, MRANTI will connect the government with industry, academia and civil society.

Through MRANTI, we seek to inspire the world with a bold new vibrant model to accelerate ideas to impact through the creation, development and commercialisation of technology and innovation.

MRANTI will be set up as a technology and innovation launch pad to help enterprises, researchers and inventors maximise their “return on ideas”, or ROI, at a quicker rate, with enhanced scalability and optimised synergies. While the conventional ROI — return on investment — conveys fiscal yields from capital outlays, return on ideas broadly refers to the conversion of knowledge to fiscal earnings.

We know breaking into new markets is not easy. You may be flying high locally, but that does not guarantee you success elsewhere. Different markets have different requirements and needs. We are here to help connect the dots. Let us accelerate impact and win together.

Amiruddin Abdul Shukor is CEO of the Malaysian Global Innovation and Creativity Centre (MaGIC)

Source: https://www.theedgemarkets.com/article/my-say-malaysian-startups-set-shine-regional-stars

3 Brilliant Strategies For Improving CX In 2022

Customers now have an array of options that pressure organisations to scale up to better levels and ensure they continuously deliver great CX, building long-term and profitable customer relationships.

Research suggests otherwise. More brands are failing to keep up with customer expectations. 59% of global customers feel that companies have lost touch with the human element of Customer Experience (CX), with global SugarCRM research finding that 56% of UK companies say their customer churn has increased in the last 12 months.

New CX trends emerged during the pandemic but they also reminded us of the value of relationships and we are increasingly seeing businesses focusing more on service-driven over sales-driven agendas. Now is the time to get ahead of your competitors on the Customer Experience(CX) front and provide a first-class customer journey.

Let’s discover three important strategies for improving your customers’ experience in 2022.

1. Using AI to create empathy in marketing strategies.

With the pandemic shifting buying behaviour to online channels, the demand for rewarding and streamlined experiences online is critical. Empathy and personalisation are crucial thanks to the advances in the tech world.

Marketers are struggling with huge amounts of customer data to interpret and make personalised and empathic interactions. We want to give a smooth, easy and smarter CX, but it’s just not possible to scale to greater heights.

63% of digital marketing leaders still struggle with personalization but only 17% use AI and machine learning across the function. Until recently more people believed that AI is only used for assumptions and predictions. In reality, AI has spread its wings to administrative and data-driven tasks and it is only getting better. – Gartner

With new tools and automated technology, AI is now replacing conventional feedback surveys to understand customer sentiment and respond in real-time with more focus on human emotions. AI can go through ample amounts of data and can help identify the next-best actions and opportunities to connect with customers and go one step further. When empathy is at the forefront of any marketing strategy, it leads to an increase in new customer generation and increased trust with existing customers.

2. Embracing a data-driven strategy

The way forward to creating experiences tailored to each customer begins with your solid experience and intuition especially if you are a data-driven marketer. Analytics can create detailed and accurate customer profiles that can help understand customer behaviour and preferences so that they can then produce predictive insights to anticipate their behaviours and identify real-time solutions and opportunities.

It is more helpful when you have clear insights into customer behaviors, needs and contextual data are crucial. 50% of leaders have revealed that up to 50% of sales leaders admit they cannot access customer data across marketing, sales and service systems, leaving customer-facing team members without a clear picture of their customers.

You can achieve the goal of knowing your customers better by integrating a CRM platform that focuses on marketing automation and data collection. Data captured must include all touchpoints and key activities, such as calls, messages, emails, inquiries, competitor mentions, website interaction and activity logging to name a few, his captured data should be logged automatically and linked to the lead, opportunity or customer account.

A refined CRM platform will also have data collection techniques that will help fill in the blind spots and this will ultimately help organisations make accurate predictions about future
campaign efforts. This process involves sales, marketing, customer success, customer service and professional services teams. Having a common platform will easily link data captured across teams and will support an integrated revenue management approach.

3. Creating a holistic customer journey

Customer journeys are more digital these days and continue to evolve. There isn’t a straightforward “One size fits all” route to follow and there’s often only one shot to make a lasting impression. Maintaining customer retention is more sensitive than ever. You can have an immediate focus on improving CX across a holistic customer journey and are more likely to succeed and retain customers with flawless support.

Your frontline support agents need to be armed with the right technology, resources and shared knowledge to diagnose and solve problems quickly. Service-driven agendas deliver consistent, personalised customer journeys both online and in-person will be the difference between long-term customer loyalty and losing the customers to the competition. Data and tech need to be part of that equation. They are integral to any modern sales and revenue management playbook.

Analytics and advanced techniques ensure AI can facilitate and contribute to forging memorable relationships with customers. The intelligent tech helps teams like yours to understand what a “Good” Customer Experience looks like and allows the sales process to repeat itself. You and your team can pave the way to brilliant and better CX with the help of advanced analytics and AI. Discover what our chatbot can do for your business and find more interesting reasons why the chatbot can be your best friend in the business. Get a chatbot today.

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Source: https://www.mycustomer.com/community/blogs/james-frampton-sugarcrm/3-strategies-for-improving-cx-in-2022

How To Perfect And Implement 10 Successful Contact Center Strategies

Did you know? The rate of turnover in a contact center is anywhere from 30% to 45%.
Things aren’t much better for agents. Agents typically cite angry customers, poor management, high call volumes, lack of career development and outdated systems as reasons for leaving.

Despite these frustrations, contact centers remain an important part of any B2C business customer service and support strategy. From many reasons why customers dislike calling contact centers because they have earned a reputation for long wait times, confusing phone menus, repetitive explanations and unsatisfactory results.

So, what if there was a way to improve the contact center experience for both customers and agents alike? Here’s one way you can encourage better CX.

Contact Center Evaluation Checklist

Before you start to look at contact center best practices, you should conduct an in-depth evaluation of your existing operations to determine what’s working, what isn’t and what your plan of action should be. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to evaluating the health of your contact center, however, there are a few basic questions you can start with:

● How many calls do we take for our agents to resolve the customer’s problem?
● How long do customers typically wait on the phone before they’re connected to an agent?
● Do we consistently follow up after each interaction to gauge customer satisfaction?
● Are our agents successful in supporting customers because of our existing technology, or in spite of it?
● Do we currently provide customers with self-service options?
● On the whole, are our customers satisfied by their contact center experience?
● On the whole, are our agents satisfied with their workplace experience?

You can prepare the set of questions based on your contact center’s unique goals and aim to get an accurate report of the situation. Even if you know that your contact center is running effectively and efficiently, remember that there’s always room for improvement and to stay current on the latest contact center best practices and trends.

Let’s talk about best practices since you have evaluated the overall health of your contact center.
Again, which best practices you choose to implement depends entirely on the needs of your organization and the current structure of your contact center. In the interest of covering as many bases as possible, we’ve aimed to provide an exhaustive list that you can pick and choose from as necessary.

1. Establish and monitor key performance indicators (KPIs).
2. Thoroughly test for quality assurance.
3. Provide customers with multiple self-service options.
4. Develop a centralized knowledge base.
5. Publish helpful and informative content in the form of FAQs and tutorials.
6. Reduce the average amount of time customers spend in queue.
7. Invest in a system for organizing customer inquiries.
8. Hire call center agents based on attitude over aptitude.
9. Provide comprehensive training.
10. Integrate systems for a streamlined experience.

How to Leverage Data In Your Contact Center

Your goal is either to reduce handle time, improve performance or boost customer retention. With this in mind, advanced analytics with powerful insights play into your strengths and vulnerabilities which further help you optimize operations and constantly enhance the Customer Experience (CX).

Leveraging data within the contact center isn’t that hard. You need to start with a solid foundation or what we call an integrated and comprehensive hub of systems that help you meet business goals from time to time. Accordia Omni Cloud Contact Center has the proven expertise and can help you empower your contact center agents with the necessary tools, optional interaction channels and streamlined data. Enhance contact center performance with our cloud contact center. Discover Accordia Omni Cloud Contact Center today.

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Source: https://global.hitachi-solutions.com/blog/call-center-best-practices/

5 Bad Business Habits You Need to Stop Immediately

Being the cheapest isn’t the answer. Don’t look for the lowest price but the best solution.
We discovered the five business-killing mistakes by making them. Most business owners start with effort and a lot of beginner’s luck but somehow businesses don’t work when you aren’t prepared with the necessary skills. When did the frustration finally end? When we eliminated these five bad business habits. Eliminated them one by one through painstaking effort. Some of them were hard to break. With each bad habit we shed, our prospects got brighter.

You don’t have to change overnight. If you see yourself in more than one of these habits, pick one of them to break and then move on to the next one. However long it takes, these are my picks for the five bad business habits you need to stop immediately. Don’t worry about the order of things, just start with one today.

Here’s a list of bad business habits you need to stop immediately.

1. Stop setting price traps for yourself

Is it a free trial or half off? It guides students in the opposite direction – charges a higher price. When you go low on price, you set a trap for your business to fall into. Charging a high price takes confidence, a belief in the value of your solution versus a competitor’s solution.

How do you get a person to buy from you instead of your competitor? Charge less, right? Aspiring entrepreneurs who lack that confidence often get satisfied by charging a lower price. They hope the low price will peel off some market share because in their heart of hearts they don’t believe they deserve that market share. The pricing could be so low that it doesn’t justify their time. I get it. It sounds good. Especially in the business-to-business arena, most buyers aren’t looking for the lowest possible price   — they are looking for the best possible solution.

2. Stop creating websites and business cards before you make a sale

You could set a clock with the predictability of this conversation I have with my students: “So you’re going into business. Have you made a sale?” “Well, I need to make a website and business cards first. Get a phone system setup. YouTube Channel, Instagram and the works. Oh and a nice logo!”

Nope. Nope, nope, nope. That doesn’t fly with me. My response is “Stop designing your business card and make a sale. You don’t even know if you have a market fit yet. If you don’t fit, that business card is just a waste of time, money and trees.”

I used to think that worked somehow. I cringe to think of the number of websites I designed, business cards I ordered, fliers I printed, explainer videos I made, blogs I wrote – time, money and effort. I had skipped the step of confirming that the market wanted what I was trying to sell. How much did it impact me when I finally dropped this habit? My agency became a seven-figure company before I ever launched a website for it.

3. Stop building the product or service before you make a sale

This goes hand-in-hand with the above. To avoid going out and trying to make a sale, they say “Well, the product isn’t ready yet. I want to get it just right.” My answer: “Why are you building a product you haven’t sold yet? If no one has bought it, how do you know if anyone will even want it?” Sell a product before you build it? Many people can’t wrap their heads around that. It sounds dishonest.

4. Stop building your business on the cheap

You have to remember this important formula. Most buyers don’t look for the lowest price. They look for the best and most cost-effective solution. For your business to thrive, you need to do it this way too. Aspiring entrepreneurs often come from a position of scarcity. They may not have the confidence to make a sale and if your brand is put together on the cheap-cheap products, slipshod marketing, etc.

Why should anyone buy from you? Think about it. It doesn’t only apply to physical things you can touch or see. Make it a point of paying my remote employees more than the market rate for their labor. I want a very loyal team that does excellent work. Enables me to charge premium prices and attract loyal clients.

5. Stop building the business around you

You can still be a part of your biz growth by acting as quality control for that last 20%. You can still be on hand to act as quality control for that 20%. You can hire someone else to perform quality control. The hardest habit to break is to slip into the mindset that nobody can wear the hats as you do. Never make that mistake. Design every aspect of your business with the expectation that someone else will take over the role.

If you build your business around you —  if you don’t design your business to the point where you are replaceable  —  then it will own you. It will fall apart if you decide to take a vacation or face a family emergency. You really aren’t a business owner  —  you are self-employed, a different kind of rat race.

Bad habits need to go. The sooner you do, the sooner you prosper. If you build your business around you and if you don’t design it to the point where you are replaceable – then it will own you. It may fall apart if you need to take a vacation or face a family emergency but hear us out. With our comprehensive cloud contact center omnichannel solution, we could help you balance work-life balance while still being ahead of your competitors.

Accordia Omnichannel cloud contact center solution helps you to attract customers by choosing how and when they want to interact and at the same time gives you the space to improve and scale your business to greater heights. Discover Accordia Omnichannel Cloud Contact Center today.

Take me there

Source: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/387715

Customer Service : 7 Essential Skills Every Contact Center Agent Needs

Your contact center agents are brand ambassadors for you. Have you ever trained your agents on essential customer service skills? Have you ever called customer support only to speak with someone who can’t seem to help you? Or, do they seem clueless of your level of frustration? The interaction not only makes you mad but it may taint the view of your company.

As a customer service representative, you are important in the fight for customer loyalty. Customers search for you when they have problems and they want the person on the other side to listen and understand their needs. Companies recognize your value: 78% of agents say their company views them as brand ambassadors. Yet, over half 55% of agents say they need better training to do their jobs.

Imagine this; what if customer service skills are the basic knowledge and ability that your loyal customers seek from you these days? Meeting their expectations is never easy but do you know what are the necessary skills every customer representative needs?

Soft Customer Service Skills

Product knowledge is important and soft skills or interpersonal skills are also equally important. These skills ensure how the agent interacts with the customer and makes them feel. For instance, were the agents respectful throughout the conversation they had with your customers?

For further improvement of customers service skills, here’s what to master:

Communication skills

Nearly 99% of customer service representatives say that communications skills are essential. How can you ensure agents in your contact centers are hitting higher levels during every interaction?

Here’s a checklist of things to do:

1. Nail the basics. Always use clear and straightforward language and be focused on the entire conversation. Don’t be distracted by notes or experience difficulty in moving from one system to another.

2. Keep every interaction positive. Most customers are angry and feel defeated by a certain issue.
Approach engagement with an open mind. Always steer the conversation toward a positive outcome. Acknowledge the customer’s concerns. Thank them for their patience, understanding and continued loyalty.

3. Lean into the power of persuasion. Persuasive communication techniques turn problems into solutions. One way to hone this skill is to conduct role-playing exercises with fellow agents. Share ideas on how to deliver a respectful point of view. Empowering persuasion can help you cross-sell and upsell customers.

Active Listening

If there’s one thing you need to know about your customers, then it is that they never like to repeat themselves. Active listening will help your agents stay present at the moment and determine the root cause of a problem.

It’s time to improve your listening abilities, remember to take time and understand the customer’s issue. Focus and give them space to finish voicing their concerns and avoid cutting them off mid-sentence. Rephrase the issue in their own words and repeat it back for confirmation. Let’s do this to assure the customer that you hear them – and want to do everything you can to help.

Empathy

Demonstrating empathy is an important customer service representative skill. Put empathy into practice by applying emotions to problem-solving techniques. Use phrases like, “ I understand how you feel” while offering the customer the next steps and building long-term trust with the customer.

Adaptability

Each agent must be able to adapt to change.

While it’s a good rule of thumb to follow contact center prompts, use them as a guide rather than as word-for-word scripts. Mostly, a conversation requires improvising based on the customer’s personality. Attentively listen to the language of the customer and see how they express themselves to interact in their way.

Let contact center managers know if you need further training on adaptability. They also keep managers in the loop if you need to escalate an issue.

Time Management

Time is essential.

Set realistic goals with contact center managers upfront. Make sure you are clear on important metrics – whether that’s first call resolution or customer satisfaction scores. You will then know if it’s more important to stay on the line and resolve the issue and quickly escalate the case.

Hard Customer Service Skills

When customers know they are talking with a knowledgeable agent, they feel their issue will be solved. This builds trust and leads to loyalty. Technology can help you gain product knowledge more rapidly because it makes key information easily accessible. Tech also gives you the ability to collaborate with seasoned and knowledgeable colleagues in real-time.

For your agents to sharpen their customer service skills in a particular area, consider this important list.

 
Agents who want to further build their skill sets can attend the company’s training and be equipped with tools to develop good customer service skills. But to further add volume to greater and smarter customer service, the key is to adopt an Omni channel cloud contact center strategy. Yes, you read that right. An omnichannel strategy would keep you updated with the latest trends, customer data and also provide your customers with optional conversational channels to choose from.

Learn how the Accordia Omnichannel + Cloud Contact Center brings you easy interactions coupled with a comprehensive hub of Voice, Chat, Desk and Social channels so that you and your customers can pick anytime and anywhere to have a conversation. Discover Accordia Omni Cloud Contact Center today.

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Source: https://www.salesforce.com/resources/articles/important-customer-service-skills-list/?sfdc-redirect=517

5 Customer Support Trends That Are Effectively Transforming CX

Major companies have stepped up their game on Customer Experience(CX). Amazon has a positive reputation for ensuring that online merchants satisfy their customers. Those that ship fake or damaged items lose their privileges quickly. You can also improve your services by keeping up with the following trends. These trends are vital for businesses to maximize CX both offline and online.

1. Foster communication across multiple channels.

The smart omnichannel approach is an excellent way to engage customers for days and weeks. As one of the leading customer support trends, it refers to communication through multiple platforms depending on convenience.

For instance, a customer shouldn’t be put on hold until they get to a computer but interact via chat functionally on your website. Have a mobile-optimized website that supports online chat. Omnichannel communication doesn’t just entail providing a list of support options. They have to be integrated so that transitioning between them is effortless. Omnichannel support allows customers to choose the most appropriate platform to contact customer care agents. If your customer wants a simple question answered, then they can use SMS or chat.

In other specific scenarios, the customer would want to send attachments for your support agents to review specific information.

Omnichannel support is more important than ever. Studies show that 70% of customers believe that connection to a business is necessary to stay loyal to the brand. – Salesforce

In addition, more than 80% of customers are willing to surrender their personal information to businesses if it leads to better connection.

Here’s some of the benefits of an omnichannel experience:

> Customers have more choices.

> There is an improvement in customer retention and sales.

> It caters to a broader audience.

> Makes it easy to collect data.

> Leads to greater customer satisfaction.

2. Greater Focus on Mobile Customer Support Trends

The huge shift from desktop to mobile computing has inspired many big companies to focus on smartphone experiences. In fact, businesses that don’t have an app or a website optimized for mobile will be left behind.

Customers these days use mobile devices to handle most of their daily interactions, banking, shopping, planning and entertainment.

Now the customers have an easy time as they can log into the company’s app so that their profiles pop on the contact center agents’ CRM platform. It allows the support team to make a call for the matter at hand. This approach saves time and leads to better customer engagement. A positive mobile User Experience (UX) is important as it leads to higher customer satisfaction and maximizes sales.

3. AI Integrations

It is one of the top customer support trends which most businesses should focus on. Some companies have integrated AI into their marketing, communication and customer support functions. The most popular implementation of AI is in chatbots which can handle contextual questions.

Another great advantage of having the chatbot is allowing customers to operate on a 24/7 basis. A business doesn’t have to have customer support staff working at night when AI operations can handle most interactions very well.

The concept of Artificial Intelligence Customer Experience (AICX) has been implemented by some businesses. It involves leveraging deep learning, machine learning and natural language understanding to streamline the CX.

AI can transform your business fast while helping you remove unnecessary costs. Here are a few benefits of implementing AI :

1. AI yields hyper-relevant digital ads.

2. It produces personalized search algorithms.

3. Customers can find cheap prices using AI.

4. AI delivers immediate answers to customer queries.

5. AI can anticipate and prevent issues impacting CX.

Implementing AI doesn’t have to be resource-intensive. The tech allows partial deployment in specific aspects of a business. You can start with customer support.

4. Social Media Engagement

Social media has a wide and huge role in businesses, with the most crucial one being the maximization of sales through more engagement and conversion.

Other key benefits include:

1. Defining brand identity.
2. Creating stronger customer relationships.
3. Linking peer businesses.
4. Communicating with customers.

Utilizing Accordia OMNI to deliver results.

Organizations are increasingly engaging in benchmarking efforts to measure customer experience. It is a primary factor in guaranteeing customer satisfaction and high sales volume. Businesses can ensure they understand and deliver according to customer needs by recognizing and tapping into top customer support trends.

It requires businesses to recognize the role of mobile centric-marketing and communication. This businesses need to integrate AI into their customer support function too. In addition, it’s necessary to support omnichannel functionalities.

You and your team need to present an all-in-one comprehensive digital CX solution that delivers tools to maximize customer support trends, lowering cost operations and thus making your customers happier in the long run. Discover how Accordia OMNI can help you achieve.

Find Out Further

Source: https://www.customerexperienceupdate.com/edition/weekly-customer-success-rewards-programs-2022-05-28?open-article-id=21665775&article-title=5-customer-support-trends-that-are-effectively-changing-customer-experience&blog-domain=helpware.io&blog-title=helpware