Contact centers deliver maximum value when front-line service agents and back-office colleagues are able to connect, collaborate, and share knowledge to resolve customer queries quickly and efficiently. A unified and synchronized team of external-facing contact specialists and back-office subject matter experts sets the scene for consistent first-time resolutions, happy customers, and an empowered workforce.
The pursuit of higher first-contact resolution is one of many reasons why businesses are searching for ways to coordinate their external-facing contact center platforms with their internal-facing unified communication environments.
In the era of hybrid working, Microsoft Teams has established itself as the default desktop environment for many back-office knowledge workers, who don’t usually deal with customer communications. The contact center, by contrast, is a vital and highly-specialized working environment, where communications flow from all external-facing channels of engagement: spoken, written, and visual, come together and align with the Customer Data Platform, which orchestrates the organization’s systems of record. Front-line workers in the contact center are occupied with external-facing tasks and managing demand, tasks for which Microsoft Teams is woefully unsuited.
When front-line workers seek detailed information or assistance, they often turn to colleagues in the back office for help. As a result, the ability for a contact centre agent to see the status of a Teams-based back-office worker in real-time and then connect directly with them, from within the contact center platform, becomes a key driver of productivity.
“Integrating your contact center with Microsoft Teams unleashes a powerful synergy between customer engagement and internal collaboration. In today’s interconnected, hybrid world, organizations should prioritize solutions that enable agent productivity and streamlined, efficient communication.”
- Martin Taylor, Co-Founder and Deputy CEO of Content Guru.
The right tech and process strategy can make collaboration, information gathering, and streamlined customer service truly effortless. The question is, how do you ensure you’re connecting your contact center with your back-office Microsoft Teams environment in the best possible way?
Step 1: Define Crucial Features and Goals
Every contact center should work to support seamless communication across the business. An effective integration for Microsoft Teams makes it easier for organizations’ front-office agents to coordinate with back-office workers. Although use cases will vary, in today’s hybrid, dispersed environment tools that allow for better communications are in high demand and are vital for internal interactions. To get the most out of Teams, it is important to assess the barriers within internal communications and define the additional capabilities that can be unlocked with improved connections between departments.
One key benefit achieved through Teams is that agents have the ability to see live availability status, allowing them to choose the most appropriate available back-office specialist to contact for support, with no time lost waiting for unavailable colleagues. One size certainly won’t fit all, but it is important that before starting the journey to improved communications, your goals and possibilities are mapped out.
Step 2: Find a Reliable and Certified Vendor
Only Microsoft-certified contact center solutions guarantee compatibility, reliability, and quality of service. These are custom-made to enhance external and internal engagement channels. While there are many contact center solutions in the cloud space that claim to integrate with Microsoft Teams, only a handful have undergone the rigorous testing required for Microsoft certification.
“Microsoft Teams has been adopted as the standard communications software by so many enterprises. Contact centers operate a number of channels to connect with customers and citizens, but it is important to establish the correct integrations that allow for seamless communications between front-office and back-office staff, and Teams is crucial for achieving better intra-organizational interactions.”
- Martin Taylor, Co-Founder and Deputy CEO of Content Guru.
Step 3: Prioritize Excellent User Experience
Integrating Microsoft Teams with a contact center platform should improve, not damage, agent experiences. Time is of the essence in customer and employee experience, so efficiency is essential. When your agents need to jump across applications to collaborate internally and find the information they need, it takes up valuable seconds, to the detriment of both the customer experience and the bottom line. Bringing Teams and the contact center together into a single pane of glass allows businesses to reduce the number of apps and tools employees need to access daily and drive up productivity.
Some solutions can also offer access to extra features that deliver additional support to agents when they need it most. For instance, a desktop task assistant, or unified agent environment, can provide professionals with valuable data-driven insights, taken from a variety of sources within the business, enabling the delivery of a more personalized customer interaction.
To enhance the agent experience and empower team members to accomplish more, it’s worth looking for integrations that offer:
- An intuitive interface: Adding a contact center to Microsoft Teams shouldn’t make the collaboration app more complex to use. A streamlined and intuitive interface should allow employees to quickly locate team members, view their availability, and contact them fast.
- Real-time analytics dashboards: Dashboards can provide supervisors and agents with more of the information they need to enhance customer experiences and keep team members engaged. They offer immediate insights into the customer journey, empowering all staff.
- Screen pops: Screen pops containing valuable data from Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and the Customer Data Platform (CDP) can further equip agents to access valuable knowledge during conversations. Some solutions even include script suggestions that guide interactions in real time, reducing the mental load on the agent.
Bringing Microsoft Teams to the Contact Center
Aligning contact center platforms with innovative UC solutions for employee collaboration and communication delivers a valuable advantage to today’s businesses. Although Teams is not an appropriate platform to carry out communications with customers, it can provide a positive impact on intra-organizational communications. With the right integration, businesses can empower their staff members, and in turn, improve customer service strategies and cut operational costs.
A contact center solution certified for Microsoft Teams is a great way for today’s business leaders to take their CX strategy to the next level.
from UC Today https://ift.tt/fYbAO41
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