6 things you need to excel in delivering superb customer experience

Achieving operational excellence, operational efficiency, or a robust contact center orchestration all share a common goal:

• Continuously improving processes, practices, and systems to achieve peak efficiency

• Productivity

• Quality in customer service operations

It is a strategic method that optimizes every aspect of contact center operations to deliver outstanding customer experiences while effectively managing costs and resources.

Here are nine reasons why maximizing operational efficiency in the contact center should matter to you:

1. Improved customer experience: Efficient operations lead to faster issue resolution and a smoother customer experience. As you know, customers appreciate quick and effective service.

2. Higher customer satisfaction: Efficient and effective customer support leads to higher satisfaction, loyalty, and positive referrals.

3. Cost efficiency: Optimizing processes reduces operational costs by minimizing the time and resources needed for each customer interaction.

4. Enhanced team engagement: Clear guidelines and streamlined processes improve the productivity of service and support teams. Engaged and motivated employees with the right tools will provide better service.

5. Reduced errors and rework: Quality control measures can minimize errors and the need for rework, leading to fewer customer complaints and smoother operations.

6. Scalability: During peak times, efficient workflows can scale to handle more calls without sacrificing service quality.

7. Data-driven decision-making: Operational excellence involves data analysis to inform decisions, optimize processes, and pinpoint areas for improvement.

8. Competitive advantage: Organizations attaining operational excellence in their contact centers can outshine competitors, offering top-tier customer service while cutting costs—thus attracting and retaining customers.

9. Adaptability to change: A robust contact center orchestration is better equipped to adapt to customer preferences, technology, and market conditions.

From the outset, you must uncover the essential key performance indicators (KPIs). These KPIs vary from one business to another, and each enterprise may prioritize different metrics. For example, are you focusing on response times across every channel or striving for higher customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores? Do you aim for improved first-call resolution (FCR) or reduce overall call volume through self-service options? Understanding which KPIs matter most to your success is vital before you can move on to the next stage.

Understanding the essential KPIs serves as a strong baseline for measuring progress accurately. It helps you set realistic improvement goals by identifying your current standing in terms of efficiency, customer satisfaction, and operational metrics.

To achieve effective operational efficiency in your contact center, paying close attention to the day-to-day operations is crucial. Understanding the rhythm of your operations is essential. You need to be aware of the peak activity periods, such as from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m., and when it goes quiet, like from 5 p.m. onwards. With this knowledge, you can identify bottlenecks, peak activity periods, and areas that need improvement more quickly. This insight is essential for optimizing workforce management and resource allocation.

It’s crucial to monitor the number of customer inquiries, requests, or interactions your contact center receives and compare them against your center's capacity. This proactive approach enables you to prepare for fluctuations in demand, ensuring consistent service levels.

For instance, awareness of seasonal volumes becomes critical during holiday seasons like Christmas, Thanksgiving, and other major events. These periods involve significant back-office work that leads to increased customer interactions. At peak times, volumes can surge by as much as 400%, straining capacity and creating service gaps, as Principal Advisor at Ecosystm explains in this insightful webinar. Therefore, it's essential to have suitable agents in place and develop a self-service and deflection strategy to manage the influx of questions and requests.

According to Khoros Service expert, gaining insights into the ebb and flow of the contact center also involves analyzing the sources of high-volume calls and high-cost conversations. This analysis includes assessing whether these contacts originate from click-to-call in Google search or direct dialing. Importantly, this process is more than just deflecting to digital channels; it's about identifying areas where streamlining processes can enhance the overall customer experience.

“It's important to identify where your high-volume calls and high-cost conversations are coming from and continually evaluate the reasons for customer contact, as these may evolve on a weekly or monthly basis.”

— Wendy Mikkelsen, Senior Product Marketing Director, Khoros

Consider exploring opportunities to automate your contact center. Automating repetitive tasks such as ticket categorization and routing can significantly improve response times and reduce manual errors, increasing efficiency and productivity.

Identifying automatable tasks while maintaining the quality of customer interactions is essential. A deep understanding of your operational capacity and workflow rhythm is paramount to discerning what's suitable for automation. Armed with this insight, you can streamline your processes more effectively.

Beginning with manageable projects and scaling gradually during automation implementation ensures a smoother transition, minimizes disruptions, and builds a robust automation foundation. Start by automating one manageable area, such as appointment scheduling, or streamline smaller tasks and common FAQs. For instance, AI-powered chatbots can reduce wait times and address simple customer inquiries, allowing agents to concentrate on more complex issues. As your automation journey progresses, continue to gather insights, refine processes, and identify additional areas for automation, such as order tracking.

Before starting your journey toward operational efficiency and delivering excellent customer service, we covered the fundamental aspects to consider. To learn more about effective strategies, best practices, and real-world success stories, watch our on-demand webinar to help you achieve operational excellence this year.

The key to success is always being available for your customers wherever and whenever they need you. Khoros Service is a solution that helps enterprise businesses scale their customer service operations quickly, seamlessly blending synchronous and asynchronous modes. ​​

We are firm believers in the idea that every component, whether it is AI-powered bots or business applications, should work together to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of customer engagement strategies.

Our customer service software allows brands to serve customers on their digital channel of choice with unmatched operational insight to boost satisfaction and reduce costs. When you unify multiple channels in a single workflow, you empower your agents with the ability to engage across all touchpoints, including but not limited to:

• Messaging apps like WhatsApp, Apple Messages for Business, and Google Business Messages, Line

• Social networks like Facebook, X, LinkedIn and WeChat

• Review sites, like Google Play Store, iOS App Store, Yelp, and Trustpilot

• Brand-owned channels, like web chat, in-app, email, SMS, and voice

• Owned communities, forums, and knowledge bases