Digital disruption: more about the disruptive than the digital
Digital disruption is a term being heard more and more often across various industries, from contact centres in the service sector to goods being manufactured and in fact across the whole supply chain, and is clearly turning the world of customer service on its head.
“At its core, digital disruption is more about the disruption than it is about the digital, especially in the customer experience (CX) space” says Dave Ashton, Merchants Account Manager: BPO, Business Development, “and companies that are willing to be disruptive, to change the way they serve, engage and communicate with their customers, will lead the way into the future.”
According to Ashton, there has been a distinctive shift in consumer-to-business communication where customers are using several different digital mediums to find information, seek opinion or solve their issues. With a greater move to self-serve and assisted-service through web chat and message services, the human voice interface is often a last resort when digital means have been exhausted.
“At its core, digital disruption is more about the disruption than it is about the digital, especially in the customer experience (CX) space”
In 2015, the Dimension Data Global Benchmark report showed that within a matter of years more than half of all contact centre interactions would be through digital channels. This is almost the case now as there is a significant move by businesses to provide new digital channels for consumer-to-business interactions in a medium of the consumer’s choice.
The 2017 Dimension Data Global Benchmark report details the continued move to digital with organisations, on average, offering nine channel choices – this is forecasted to rise to 11 channels by 2018.
“In 2015, the Dimension Data Global Benchmark report showed that within a matter of years more than half of all contact centre interactions would be through digital channels”
This means that a customer speaking to an agent may have been through several channels and embarked on different journeys to reach this point. “There is however a fractured strategy or reluctance to hand over the full gamut of digital services to an outsourced service provider,” says Ashton, “this leads to a ‘wallpapering’ of digital delivery and will only increase cost, erode margin and drive customers to a competitor who can proactively gauge when customers are ready to buy, delight them with every interaction and ensure a lower cost to serve benefit passed on in their pricing!
This is why an omni-channel view is the real game changer in the contact centre industry. It allows the servicing of customers through their preferred medium and allows for customer’s history and preferences to be noted in one place. Furthermore using this data correctly helps in delivering the next element for customer experience, proactive and personalised contact.
“There is however a fractured strategy or reluctance to hand over the full gamut of digital services to an outsourced service provider,”
“Having an end-to-end view of a customer’s interactions with a brand and using the information within that view to exceed their expectations is just one of the ways in which digital disruption provides a superior customer service,” says Ashton. He goes on to add “because we actually know the person on the other end and are able to gauge and answer their current and future needs or desires.”
Merchants recognises that the journey to delivering digital is more than just providing an online or social media service between our clients and their customers – our intention is to be able to marry the digital technology with the human touch to provide answers with empathy and compassion, providing not just a resolution, but an experience.
However once in place, the digital contacts being initiated and answered over a number of channels, can be used to map the customer journeys, and thereby identify simple processes that could deliver more automation or integration into Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Bots – another step towards using digital to disrupt your CX offering.
“Our intention is to be able to marry the digital technology with the human touch to provide answers with empathy and compassion, providing not just a resolution, but an experience.
Ashton said, “If innovation increases the overall cost to your operation, then it’s been incorrectly implemented and used, and adding peripheral services as a tick-box exercise is not using digital to disrupt business. The point of digital disruption in CX is to both increase customer experience and lower cost – it’s not about offering a weak webchat offering that people think ticks the boxes.”
Finally, consumers are continually finding new ways of communication and as service organisations, contact centres need to ensure they at the least keep up with technological advances, if not lead the way into the era of digital disruption, enabling the transformation journeys of the brands they represent providing innovation and adding value.
“The point of digital disruption in CX is to both increase customer experience and lower cost – it’s not about offering a weak webchat offering that people think ticks the boxes.”