5 Key Takeaways from the Future Contact Center Summit

Since the event is called the Future Contact Center Summit, a producer might intuitively think to incorporate numerous robotic elements and load the agenda with discussions of new technologies and channels.

Call Center IQ took a different approach to the event, which took place last week (January 26-30) in Orlando, FL.

While attention was indeed paid to technological innovation, the heart of the program concerned a shift in how businesses leverage their people, processes and technologies to satisfy customers. If we exist in an "age of the customer," the future of the contact center is one that exists to best meet their needs and best deliver on their hopes and expectations.

The key takeaways from the event, therefore, concern the philosophical transformations—and supportive actions—needed to create that optimal, customer-centric contact center of the future. Technology matters insofar as it can create better customer experiences, but it does not derive value from being "futuristic."

Those takeaways follow:

Get Personal with Customers: When Discover’s Mark Scarborough touted his business’ "We treat you like you’d treat you" catchphrase, he did not change the tone of the event. He merely conveyed one of the event’s core themes in an eloquent fashion.

The days of delivering generic, scripted, procedural support are over. In today’s age, businesses must commit not simply to the abstract "customer" but to each individual customer with whom they interact. What they communicate—and how they communicate it—must be guided by what the specific customer wants rather than by what the business typically offers.

"Competing on the customer experience" requires more than offering a baseline commitment to quality service. It entails offering each individual customer the right service and right resolution at precisely the right time. It entails being the brand the customer needs – whenever and wherever the customer needs it.

To get there, businesses must focus on three realms of action:

Data – In order to personalize service for customers, businesses must know those customers. They must understand those customers. A robust means of acquiring, interpreting and acting on customer intelligence is pivotal to that focus.

Focus – If the business does not recognize the value of a personalized customer experience, it will never successfully deliver that experience. It must stop treating its objectives as separate from those of its customers (which would position a personalized customer experience as a cost) and instead recognize the two as perpetually connected. When it does, it will recognize that the cost associated with personalizing the experience is its surest ticket to lasting value.

Empowerment – Personalization is demonstrated by action rather than rhetoric. If agents are not actually able to break script and customize their support style—and support offerings—to the needs of each customer, they will be unable to create optimal satisfaction.

Get Personal with Agents: When one juxtaposes the words of former Disney executive Lee Cockerell with those of Ryan Jenkins, he stumbles upon a major source of consternation for contact center leaders.

On the one hand, Cockerell’s messaging regarding the importance of traditional work ethic and discipline cannot be ignored. Today’s world of customer management is a demanding one, and success cannot be achieved without cultures of strict accountability, responsibility and actionability.

Jenkins’ discussion of the millennial generation threw a wrench into the situation. The personality traits common to the generation thatwill dominate the contact center environment do not necessarily align with the demands of a traditional management environment. If best practices for driving productivity do not apply to the people whom a business requires to actually be productive, how will contact centers survive—let alone thrive—moving forward.

The key is to adopt a personalized approach to agent culture.

Just as businesses cannot ascribe a one-size-fits-all approach to their customer interactions, they cannot do so for their employee management strategy. They must take into account the unique intricacies of each employee and determine how to amplify strengths and hide weaknesses.

The ultimate goal is to indeed reach the Disney level of productivity and discipline. Getting there, however, does not involve establishing blanket processes and procedures. It does not involve a generic training regimen. It involves connecting with customers and coaching them to success.

Take Ownership: In his opening keynote, LinkedIn’s Andy Yasutake stressed that competitors do not operate with fear. They do not submissively yield to more established businesses. They do not reject opportunities to establish a competitive advantage. If there is a way to do something better than the rest of the marketplace, they are going to do so.

Customers act with similar levelsof urgency and determination. They are not satisfied by promises of customer-centricity. They are not forever won by past achievements. If they do not receive what they want now—and then continue to receive that in the future—they will find someone who can give it to them.

Businesses, therefore, must take ownership for their customer experience offerings. Neither a competitor nor a customer cares why a business cannot deliver on promises and meet customer demands. They only care whether it is or not.

Businesses must adhere to the same philosophy. Instead of devoting effort to explaining why something is less than stellar, the entirety of their effort should go to making it stellar.

Say it Right: When customer thought leaders remark that the customer experience "is not only about what you say but how you say it," they are typically talking about demeanor. They are stressing that the manner in which the agent works to connect with the customer plays a role in shaping the customer’s reaction to the service he receives.

When The Writer’s Neil Taylor tackled that notion, he was referring to a different sort of how. He was referring to the actual words a business uses when communicating with customers.

A business’ work does not end once it arrives upon the appropriate resolution and tone in which to communicate that resolution. The specific language it uses also plays an enormous role in the experience.

Relevant on the phone, the need to "say it right" is becoming particularly important in an increasingly voice-less world. As businesses work to communicate customer-centricity in their e-mail, live chat, text and social media support engagements, word choice is their only means of connecting. It is their only means of properly conveying the spirit and humanity behind the service effort. It is their only means of successfully tailoring the interaction to specific customers and channels.

The service experience serves to inform customers not only of a business’ capability but of its identity. Each word associated with a voice or text response serves to craft that identity.

Innovate for Customers’ Sake: An event focusing on the future of the contact center was naturally going to foray into discussions of emerging media and technology. That inquiry did not, however, come purely from a state of wonder.

While businesses generally accept the importance of going omni-channel – and accept the importance of innovative contact center solutions – customer-centric ones know not to blindly indulge. They know to ask why before figuring out what to target from an investment standpoint.

When adding channels to the engagement mix or transforming the technology used to manage that engagement, businesses must operate with complete awareness of the impact on customers. Does an exciting technology add value because it makes the customer experience better or because it comes with a lower operational price tag? Does introducing a particular contact channel enable a business to better honor customer preferences or does it merely allow the business to mirror a competitor’s offering or "best practice" template?

Only those that speak positively to the former part of the question—the element of customer value—should command attention in customer-centric contact centers. If a piece of innovation does not present clear customer benefit, it is far more regressive than it is progressive.

Numerous case study conversations and countless exhibition hall discussions centered on this smarter, more level-headed approach to new technologies.