Improving The Inbound Customer Journey

In this article Martin Bacon, Cloud Consultant at Chess, discusses why the inbound customer journey is vital to your business, and how to automate and improve customer satisfaction. He covers:

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We have all been there; you need to get in touch with an organisation only to be hit with an automated message that has endless options, none of which really suit your query, so you end up pressing any old number just to speak to someone.

It may be a widely used tactic, but it completely goes against the grain of what customers want. The key point of a good inbound experience is to ease the customer journey and get you in touch with the right person or department quickly, saving time for both parties.

Why is the inbound customer journey important to your business?

For a customer, the ease of doing business with an organisation is a critical factor in ensuring a great experience and their return custom. However, frustrations of not being able to speak to the right people can quickly become apparent and put businesses on the back foot from the start.

Suppose a customer has a bad experience trying to get through to you, having to navigate complicated and confusing menus, and waiting too long. In that case, the first conversation you will have with them is a complaint from their irritation, which starts things in a very negative light.

The business impact 

We regularly ask our customers how they think their customer journey is performing. However, the unfortunate fact is a lot of organisations don’t know as they don’t have any statistics, reporting, or processes to tell them. 

If a potential new customer has a bad experience of waiting for too long to get through, they will more than likely hang up and call someone else. For existing customers, not being able to reach you could cause them not to call at all and move their business elsewhere. In all cases, a poor customer journey can result in lost opportunities and unhappy customers.

Missed calls, Missed revenue​

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Cloud Voice Contact features to assist with the inbound journey

There are many ways in which can we improve a customer’s experience with Cloud Voice Contact Centre:

• Visual call flow designer 

Having a visual view of the customer’s inbound call journey helps to demonstrate how the experience works. Traditionally, call flow design was left to the engineers to interpret what the business wanted. With Cloud Voice Contact, anyone in your business with the proper training can adapt and improve call flows with a few clicks whenever required.

• Keep customers informed of expected wait times and their position in the queue 

Being open and honest with customers if you are busy isn’t a bad thing. However, being able to automate the process of when and what to communicate is a great benefit of Cloud Voice Contact. 

For example, you can announce queue positions when 3 or more people are in the queue. When this reaches 5 people, you can announce their position along with a customised message. The same with estimated wait times, Cloud Voice Contact can intelligently assess your average queue waiting times and present this to callers automatically.

• The ability to leave a message or offer a call-back

Suppose wait times get too long and your agents are having a particularly busy time. In that case, you can automatically offer your callers the ability to leave a message or retain their position in the queue via a call-back service. With call-back services, the calls will automatically be presented back to your agents with no need to dial any numbers.

• Call routing for repeat callers

Route a return caller back to the previous agent they spoke to, helping to provide a better customer experience. With Cloud Voice Contact logging all of your agent’s interactions, the platform can cross-reference the calling number and then automatically route to the agent they spoke to, maintaining continuity and faster service.

• Analyse and report on your IVR’s and Call Flows 

With Cloud Voice Contact in place, it comes down to honing and enhancing the experiences to see how it performs. For example, automated reporting on which IVR’s are busiest, which calls drop out and when, along with all the dashboarding required for instant statistics, will deliver tangible performance benefits along with happy customers.

Cloud Voice Contact

Cloud Voice Contact is an integrated business communication and customer contact solution that simplifies multi channel customer interaction, perfect for organisations who want to make it easier for customers to engage with them.

Cloud Voice Contact
Simplifying customer engagement

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