They say that change approaches slowly and arrives suddenly. What were once feasible yet marginal ideas, such as celebrating a friend’s birthday on Zoom (which is apparently different from just ‘drinking alone’), or holding a book club discussion over FaceTime, instantly became mainstream in 2020.
Similarly, in the world of business, enforced remote working saw previously office-based workers take Teams meetings and instant messaging in their stride. All very well, perhaps, for internal meetings and professional collaboration, but spare a thought for those in customer–facing contact centers. Finding themselves manning their organizations’ front lines under difficult physical circumstances, they too have had to find innovative ways to build connections and maintain loyalty.
Whereas, in the early days of the pandemic, businesses addressed their immediate need to continue working as smoothly as possible, largely from home and via the cloud. Much corporate focus has now shifted to the existential need to stay in business by providing excellent customer experiences. Martin Taylor, Deputy CEO and Co-founder of Content Guru speaks to UC Today about how a unified communications (UC) and contact center as a service (CCaaS) solution keeps operations effective throughout COVID-19.
“Many contact centers require effective front and back–office collaboration in order to resolve queries and transact smoothly. At the same time, they must be able to deal with consumers who want to communicate across an array of channels, most of which are driven by their mobile devices.”
“The storm® solution is now rolling out its integration with Zoom, having already integrated with Teams – the two applications that emerged from the pandemic as the titans of enterprise remote working.”
Consumers, on the other hand, will use any combination of traditional phone calls or email alongside video calls, Instant Messaging, Twitter, Messenger, WhatsApp, etc. to connect with businesses. Any organization not able to accommodate a customer’s preferred methods will lose out to one who can. An omni-channel, customer-facing, cloud-based communications solution should integrate with the organization’s internal-facing technology, such as Teams and Zoom, in order to be fully effective.
Aligning front and back–office collaborative tools is essential to enabling contact center agents to deliver the best customer service during the continuing age of remote working. Content Guru’s storm Microsoft Teams integration allows users to dial external numbers through Teams, as well as transfer phone calls to back-office subject matter experts who can advise customers on the most complex matters. The process works equally effectively in the opposite direction for a seamless, unified environment. The storm cloud contact center solution has unmatched integration capabilities, with hundreds of successful integrations to third-party enterprise software systems, such as Microsoft Azure and Dynamics or Salesforce.
Beyond Business as Usual
Content Guru’s reimagining of one-way and two-way video calls has transformed this tool from merely a means of collaboration to a lifeline in the hands of healthcare contact center agents. Herts Urgent Care (HUC) runs the NHS 111 telephone line and General Practitioner (GP) out-of-hours services for over 3.3 million people in the East of England, both of which are crucial components of the NHS’s urgent care response. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, face-to-face consultations placed both patients and clinicians at risk of infection and made the transition to telehealthcare more urgent. Content Guru developed the storm LINK
On-Demand Video Consultation application as part of its broader storm CCaaS solution. Whereas before, video consultations needed to be scheduled, Content Guru’s technology enables HUC clinicians to launch them on an ad-hoc basis, which better suits the urgent care environment. storm LINK On-Demand Video Consultation meets all clinical safety and data protection safeguards required by the NHS and has rapidly become an indispensable part of patient care.
Taylor further explains, “It’s not just in healthcare where this technology can help. Retail organizations need to use their people, as well as their bricks and mortar assets, to offer a personalized, concierge-like service remotely, using the latest communication techniques. Rather than offering a flat, utilitarian online shopping experience, video technology enables a crossover between the convenience of online retail, and the immersiveness of an in-store experience.”
Bringing Remote Teams Together With Quality Call Data
Martin Taylor
A high-quality end product requires teamwork that can’t be compromised due to changes in how teams work. It is hard both for supervisors and agents alike to thrive when agents are working remotely. Without the right tools, it is hard for supervisors to understand the ongoing performance of remote staff and hard for them to coach staff to achieve the required level. storm Quality Management (QM) is a fully integrated quality management and reporting solution for contact centers and similar environments, distributed or otherwise. With storm QM, contact center managers can monitor staff interactions and track agent performance over time, measured against Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and business goals. storm QM provides everything that a contact center needs to meet its evolving quality objectives and establish best-practice policies for call and digital message handling. Content Guru’s suite of remote solutions positions organizations for maximum effectiveness, able to withstand the business impact of global uncertainty.
from UC Today https://ift.tt/3l2Mf1L
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