5 Critical Requirements

for a Future-Ready
Contact Centre
eBook
 IS YOUR CONTACT CENTRE
FUTURE-READY?
How to Deliver an Effortless Customer
Experience (CX) Across Multiple Channels

It may not be a comfortable question, but

nevertheless necessary to ask yourself: does
your contact centre infrastructure have the
flexibility to readily support new paths of
customer communication? Are you easily able
to add new channels, or do you break into a
sweat just thinking about it?

At the core of the issue, your infrastructure

may be based on technology that is dated from
back in the day when customer contact was
synonymous with a phone call.

Today, your customers expect so much more.

They want the agent who answers their call
to know theyve already sent an email and
engaged in web chat. You may be struggling to
link all these customer touch points at the same
time youre asked to reduce costs and improve
resource utilisation.

Lets take a look at how you can get started!

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5 CRITICAL REQUIREMENTS TO BUILDING
A FUTURE-READY CONTACT CENTRE

1 Step Beyond Multichannel

2 Distribute Work From a Single Point

3 Virtualise Your Resources

4 Manage Off-line Work

5 Optimise Your Workforce

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 1. STEP BEYOND MULTICHANNEL
Your Customers Expect Omnichannel
If your contact centre began as a voice-only call centre, you may have added email, web chat and other channels as
needed. Perhaps your infrastructure didnt readily allow you to add these new channels, and they were implemented as
independent, siloed solutions. Youre certainly not alone in this scenario!

But, to distinguish your company from its competitors requires a new way of serving customers. Instead of merely enabling
customers to send an email or an SMS, exceptional and differentiated customer service requires knowledge of previous
interactions. You need not just multichannel, but omnichannel.

Simply put, omnichannel means true continuity of the customers experience. By giving agents immediate access to
previous interactions, you deliver that continuity. You create the perfect setting for highly satisfied customers.

Companies that connect all their customer service channels

report 89% customer retention, compared to 33% for those
that havent.
Aberdeen Group1

1.
Destination CRM article: http://www.destinationcrm.com/Articles/Editorial/Magazine-Features/The-4-Key-Customer-Service-Omnichannel-Considerations-97686.aspx
Aberdeen report Ominchannel Customer Care

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 2. DISTRIBUTE WORK FROM A SINGLE POINT
Build Routing Rules to Optimally Serve Your Entire Business
Managing all conflicting needs in your contact centre is a never-ending balancing act. Do you ever feel like a juggler, barely
able to keep all the balls in the air?

You need a single decision engine to manage all customer interactions. Then you can create business rules that best serve your
business as a whole. With every new contact, customer needs are matched with the very best available resource.

Where are we in danger of How can I handle more work What is the best way to handle
missing service levels? if I cant add more agents? emails without impacting wait
time for callers?

Who is the best agent to help Are there agents doing email
this particular customer? who could help me deal with
this unexpected call spike?

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 3. VIRTUALISE YOUR RESOURCES
The Magic Formula for Doing More With Less
Many companies today are spread across multiple sites locations that grew organically or were added via mergers and
acquisitions. Each may have its own contact centre. You may have branch offices where employees are busy at times but idle
during off-peak periods. Envision being able to pull available resources from all these locations as needed. Now thats a great
way to meet service levels!

What do you gain by virtualising your contact centre?

Economies of Scale Business Continuity Add work-at-home agents

Meet service levels across the business by If natural or man-made disasters occur, Find talented, educated agents across
dynamically expanding your agent pool to your contact centre doesnt miss a beat. the country or the globe. Increase agent
include agents in other locations. retention while lowering hiring and training
costs.

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 4. MANAGE OFFLINE WORK
Its a Critical Part of Your Customers Experience
The bottom line is this: a customer or prospects perception of your company doesnt depend solely on their phone call, web
chat or email response. You may have linked the customer journey through all touch points, ensuring the agent who answers
the call has knowledge of all previous interactions. But is the offline work delivered in a timely manner?

Your agent performance could be flawless, yet the overall customer experience negative if back-office follow-through isnt up to par.

Unfortunately its the least common denominator. One weak link can damage the customer relationship or send the
customer or prospect into the arms of your competitor. By integrating customer contacts with back-office fulfillment, you ensure
complete follow-through and drive a positive business outcome.

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 5. OPTIMISE YOUR WORKFORCE
Looking Beyond Agent Scheduling and Adherence
If you have more than a handful of agents, chances are youre using a Workforce Management solution for agent scheduling
and adherence. But WFM is just one tool in your toolbox to optimise agents and the customer experience.

Your Workforce Optimisation solution needs to:

Deliver best-in-class
customer experience
Ensure the optimal number
of agents are staffed for
each channel.
Improve operational
efficiency
Contain costs by right-
staffing: meet service
levels across all channels
without overstaffing
Ensure agent happiness
Give them a variety
of work, time off and
schedule bidding and
swapping
Comply with regulations
Use speech and text
analytics to ensure
regulatory compliance,
agent adherence to scripts,
and to ferret out problems
and opportunities.

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ADDRESSING THESE 5 CRITICAL REQUIREMENTS
How Do We Get There?

Perhaps its time to ask whether your current contact centre solution is flexible enough to deliver the superior customer journey your
customers demand. Do you ever feel like youre dealing with a tangle of point solutions, bolted together with duct tape and chicken wire?

Force-fitting more channels into an aging infrastructure is likely not the optimal answer.

A modern customer service organisation should be built on modern technology instead of old-fashioned monolithic hardware. Using an open,
standards-based SIP contact centre solution, you can drastically reduce architectural complexity and establish a foundation for innovation.

Any one channel that degrades the customer experience

will negatively impact all others.
Yankee Group1
1.
Drive More Valuable Customer Experience with Proactive Engagement Across the Life Cycle Sheryl Kingstone, Yankee Group, June 2014

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 BUILDING YOUR FUTURE-READY
CONTACT CENTRE
Genesys can help ensure your contact centre is ready to meet your customers demands, today and tomorrow.

Based on averages of actual benefits realised by Genesys customers, you can expect to see significant
improvements in metrics such as transfers, as well as costs and downtime. On average, our customers are seeing:

32% 15% 25% 51%

Reduction in Reduction in Reduction in Reduction in

intra-site transfers inter-site transfers infrastructure costs downtime

Get Started Request a Demo Learn More

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 Website: www.genesys.com/uk Contact Us: +44 (0) 1276 457000

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