CCW Nashville Recap: Analysts Highlight Top Tech and Innovation Trends

What does CCW Digital and the Music City have in common, you might wonder? A heartfelt dedication to amazing experiences, exceptional live performances and an excess of adoring fans. Hopefully some of our audience was able to experience it — but if not we’re here to recap some of our favorite highlights for CCW Nashville 2022!

The CCW Digital Analyst team, including Brian Cantor, Wandy Ortiz and myself, Brooke Lynch, was thrilled to present our latest research on personalization, digital experiences and agent enablement across three exciting interactive sessions. Upholding the values of Tech and Innovation day, each session addressed industry challenges, highlighed innovative technology and helped outline a path for more successful, sophisticated and imaginative customer experiences.

Here is a breakdown of our favorite sessions and some key takeaways for anyone who may have missed out:

Making Personalization Productive

We know personalization is important — if you attended any session throughout the event or browse any CCW digital content for no longer than 30 seconds you’re bound to encounter some discussion of personalization. 

Personalization has evolved greatly over the past few years; brands who may have been equipped to deliver a personalized experience on the phone now have to work harder to deliver that same tailored message in a virtual chat. While it may seem that customers only expect convenience and speed when engaging digitally, personalization continues to be a critical component for across all experiences.

Yet, with all of this discussion on personalizing experiences, companies may not be putting their money where their mouths are. CCW Digital research confirmed that only 15% of customers believe their experiences are personalized. And, companies are not blind to this fact; as few as 6% of organizations state they are delivering wholly personalized journeys. 

Our CCW Digital team broke down some of the key reasons companies might still be lagging behind: 

Diminishing Data: The number one complaint when it comes to personalization is that companies don’t have enough real-time data about customers and their intentions.

Personalization, who?: Leading organizations shared that they struggle to even definite personalization, what it should look like and how they will deliver it.

Keeping things Personal at Scale: Companies acknowledge concerns over scalability and how it might impact their efforts to go all-in on personalization.

But, it wouldn’t be a CCW Digital Tech and Innovation session if we didn’t share some solutions for improving personalization and enhancing experiences. Brian Cantor updated his iconic personalization spectrum to advise on hallmarks of the best and most productive uses of personalization. While I won’t give away all of them, as you had to be there to experience the excitement, here are some noteworthy adjustments:

Acknowledgement: Make it clear that you already have the customer’s name, account details, etc.

Real Recognition: Use signals to confirm that you actually know who the customer is

Show Your Work: Don’t be shy - demonstrate how you’ve used knowledge of the customer to help streamline the journey and bypass inefficiencies

Next Generation Self Service & Digital CX, Automation Technology

Customers have been, admittedly, a bit harsh on digital lately. While we continue to see the need for digital support options, customers don’t fully trust that they are there to get the job done.

From our own research we found that only 16% of customers feel that brands have gotten significantly better at delivering digital experiences since covid. But, they are still open to the idea — 90% of customers also say that convenient and easy digital experiences would make them more likely to support a brand.

So, where is this divide coming from then? When we asked contact center executives what their biggest goals were for improving trust and they pointed to a few areas:

Speed & Convenience: They listed this as the #1 “fix” for improving trust in digital

Personalization: Too many digital experiences remain irrelevant/generic

Data Security: Concerns about data breaches prevent customers from fully embracing digital

Agents/Resourcing: One of the greatest limitations on seamless experiences

What’s interesting here is that digital inherently aims to be the most seamless, convenient and immediate option. However, added friction across the digital journey has made customers reluctant to engage on digital at all. To create a digital-forward service strategy, then, companies must work on optimizing self-service and digital channels to remove this stigma and facilitate the level of ease customers are desperately seeking.

The CCW Digital team came up with suggestions for imminent improvement:

Deploy Where it Makes Sense: Which tasks truly don’t need agent assistance? There are plenty of customers who are more than willing to avoid a lengthy conversation and receive a quick response, determine which areas automation is best suited for.

Provide Real Resolutions: There’s nothing worse than attempting to use a chatbot and realizing it has no functional ability to solve your issue. Don’t just collect information; automate responses.

Leverage conversational capabilities: It’s meant to be intelligent self-service, not a 1997 FAQ page. Empowering customers to use their own voice, words and tone is critical for making self-service approachable.

Accommodate all customer intentions: Bots can’t solve everything, but bots should allow every conversation to get started.

Agent Effort and Enablement 

The agent experience is now more important than ever; over the past few years brands finally recognized the deeper role frontline employees play in facilitating the over-the-top experiences customers are seeking out.

The cliche that happy agents equals happy customers will always ring true, but understanding the equation behind agent happiness will never be so simple.

In today’s economic climate, companies may not be equipped to provide the lofty salaries and unmatched perks they boasted just a few months prior. The evolving labor market and impending economic downturn have posed major challenges to organizations everywhere, prompting a shift in how we optimize and improve the agent experience. 

But, aligned with the idea that money doesn’t solve everything, our CCW Digital team broke down the true indicators of agent happiness and provided some guidelines for effective employee experiences.

It’s All in the Day-to-Day: According to a recent study, 42% of employees who found a new job during the great resignation feel that it has not lived up to their expectations. What does that mean? Not just that flashy salaries and exciting opportunities don’t work — they do, but only for so long. Innovative work environments and pay bumps may get employees in the door, but their true satisfaction is linked to their day-to-day experience. 

Improving the Work Experience: Offering perks will not solve the problem of a complex and frustrating workflow. Ensuring that agents have all of the tools and resources they need to thrive will certainly go a long way in setting them up for success. What might that look like?

• Simple access to relevant customer data, knowledge, and internal expertise
• Easy-to-use tools that allow customer to focus on connecting
• Intelligent use of automation that prioritizes high-value work
• Real-time performance tracking, management, guidance, and training
• Diversity of workflow
• Organizational trust and empowerment

For more insights and a live look at the future of contact center operations the CCW Digital team will be back December 13-15 for the annual Future of the Contact Center event. Join the analyst team along with industry leading speakers from Spotify, Misfits Markets and Boxed.com. Covering predictions for the next year, top CX trends of 2022 and the future of customer experiences, there is plenty more exclusive CCW Digital content for anyone who missed out.