7th November 2022
There’s an awkward truth lurking inside contact centres — where data silos create a headache for data integration.
Even if your agents are world class, your contact centre could be misfiring badly — owing to a stubborn problem buried deep within your operation. Now’s the time to fix it.
According to CX Network’s 2022 report The Big Book of Customer Insight and Analytics, data silos are now the number-one customer data challenge facing customer experience leaders. In fact, nearly half of respondents (46%) list data silos among their top three headaches.
While data silos might seem like back-office gremlins for IT teams to grapple with, the damage caused on the front line is deepening, as tech stacks evolve and customer expectations keep rising.
There’s a common scenario that plays out every day in contact centres. It goes something like this…
A customer phones up with an issue which, for instance, might be about something like fees charged. After the caller answers several security questions and explains their case, the agent can’t find the information needed to resolve the problem, so they ask the customer to speak to the billing department.
The customer then gets transferred, has to wait in another queue, jumps through new security hoops and then explains their issue all over again because the second agent doesn’t have the call history.
The caller is frustrated and feels their time was wasted by an impersonal and dysfunctional brand that doesn’t make the effort to know them. At the same time, the contact centre suffers. The first agent’s time was completely wasted, while the second call-handler found themselves on the back-foot, trying to pacify a frazzled customer. Productivity dips and job satisfaction takes a hit.
Without the free flow of data, organisations struggle to get a true, up-to-date picture of their business, their customers and all their touchpoints. Often, multiple sources of information duplicate or contradict each other — or simply become too hard to access when it really matters.
This prevents leaders from making fully-informed strategic decisions or agents from answering everyday customer queries. It’s an awkward truth to accept, but it’s holding back many contact centres. There are common reasons why data silos appear:
Even though there’s a compelling business case for integration with a strong return on investment, the issue often gets kicked into the long grass because of short-term concerns over cost, risk and protecting the bottom line. However, the silo problem keeps growing in the background.
Eradicating data silos for good requires leadership and willpower. But it’s not as slow, complex or expensive as many business leaders might think. Companies should follow these three steps:
At Netcall, we’ve created integration tools for contact centres and cross-functional business processes that deliver game-changing results. Using low-code platform development methods, business professionals can connect systems themselves, unlocking data and accelerating digital transformation that benefits customer service teams and other departments.
Using trustworthy, actionable data, agents in your contact centre — and any colleagues working remotely — will become far more productive.
With a 360-degree view of each customer in our agent desktop, it becomes simple for contact centres to track someone’s earlier interactions, purchase history or other account details. Your team now has what it takes to enrich the customer experience, provide a more personalised service and solve issues at the first point of contact.
You can save time for customers, boost their loyalty, sharpen your team’s performance and grow your revenue — all at the same time.
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Many organisations, having adopted advanced technologies like automation RPA, low-code and AI, can fall into the trap of using these technologies in isolation, failing to adequately connect them and use them interactively. This obstructs the key benefits of intelligent automation…
Customer care is at an inflection point: demands are higher and resources are limited. According to a McKinsey survey, organisations’ existing capacities are being challenged by higher call volumes and more complex and challenging enquiries. Employers are also struggling to retain customer care agents, who are being poached by competitors or feeling dissatisfied in their work.
In 2000, less than 7% of the world had internet access. Fast forward to today and that figure rises to a whopping 63% — a fact that’s even more astounding as it includes emerging and developing economies — where 93% are on social media. Just think, most of us didn’t even know what that was in 2000.
Keep up with regular news from Netcall – you’ll hear about cut-through process automation and communications solutions to help you achieve your business goals faster.
You can save time for customers, boost their loyalty, sharpen your team’s performance and grow your revenue — all at the same time.