As companies introduce newer channels of customer interactions, the biggest mistake they make is not integrating them. As a result, there will be different teams with different backend software handling different channels. And what’s missing is a holistic view of the customer’s journey along those channels. This can prove to be costly as it results in negative customer experiences and customer loss.

‘Customer journey management’ is the latest buzz word in the customer service universe. As customer touch points increase, companies find it difficult to monitor and effectively respond to customer interactions through multimodal omnichannels. However, those that can effectively orchestrate the customer’s journey and personalize their interactions reap rich rewards in terms of customer loyalty and increased operational effectiveness. New age contact center technologies and software play a crucial role in capturing customer interactions from various channels. They can even help predict where customers are on their journey. Here are a few to consider incorporating into your business:

1. Omnichannel Desktop: Instead of engaging separate teams to interact with customer queries from different channels, contact centers are now looking at a customer centric approach. Agents are allocated based on customer characteristics, no matter what the channel is. An omnichannel desktop provides a single view of the customer’s journey and allows agents to engage with the customer based on crucial insights their history. This way, agents can optimize the interaction, and increase the chances of cross sales and up sales by customizing offers exclusively for the customer.

2. Personalized Self-Service: Software tools from providers such as Genesys allow contextual and personalized self-service for each customer, cutting across channels and allowing seamless transition to assisted service.

3. Knowledge Management: An effective knowledge management platform is vital to successful omnichannel customer service. This would provide agents and customers alike with proactive contextual knowledge in assisted and self-service situations.

4. Omnichannel Callback: Today’s customer is highly demanding and does not want to be kept waiting. Rather, they would prefer the convenience of requesting a callback – be it from your website, mobile app or answering service. Omnichannel callback allows you to serve customers on their channel of choice, and at their convenience.

5. Analytics & Monitoring: Customer journey analytics and monitoring tools provide insights into the customer’s journey that can predict their behavior patterns and respond effectively. This enhances the customer’s experience, resulting in increased loyalty and a stronger bottom line for the enterprise.

Multi-channel touch points have greatly complicated the end-to-end customer journey. A modern call center infrastructure that aims to be customer centric should consider an all-in-one, open standards software platform from a single vendor. This approach will:

• Reduce multi-vendor complexity
• Allow for increased flexibility and agility
• Provide visibility and operational control across multiple sites with centralized administration

Empowering agents with the tools discussed above will enable contextual customer interactions at every point in the omnichannel journey, thereby benefitting both the enterprise and the customer.