Mobile strategy for the contact center refers to your company’s plan to leverage emerging mobile technology in order to improve customer service and cut costs. As you know, the mobile phone is used for talking only a fraction of the time. For instance, There are millions more text messages than phone calls every day and data usage due to the explosion of Android and iPhone apps is growing exponentially. So what’s your plan to leverage this communications trend? Without one, you run the risk of alienating customers because they get increasingly frustrated when they try to communicate with you for customer service or technical support.
I use the iPhone apps provided by my bank, cable and wireless company all the time. I also get text alerts from all three companies as well. It’s fantastic because it’s fast, informative and convenient. I’m a more connected and empowered customer and I am a more satisfied customer. But since the “beginning” we have had mouths to speak. We have used them, with great success, to resolve disputes and discuss new products and services with merchants. This will never change. It’s literally in our DNA.
Most of you are still struggling to define and create a good self-service mobile app for your customers in order to meet their needs. But when you begin to outline your approach, I suggest you broaden your strategy to ensure that you bridge the customer service gap that exists between the self-service app you create on the smartphone, and live service you give in the contact center. Take time to think through how you may be potentially leaving your customer’s hanging when they run out of self-service options and need to speak with somebody. When this happens, usually customers are left with tapping the main phone number that’s simply listed in the app. But the problem is that it takes you back to the beginning of the business process, usually to an IVR that asks you whether or not you wish to speak English or Spanish. Additionally, they may ask you for your account number so that they can identify you …even though you’ve been logged into their mobile app and attempting to help yourself for the past 5 minutes. You will need a plan to close this customer service loophole between your self-service mobile app and your full service contact center.
Your customers should always be just a few taps away from speaking with a specialist who knows exactly who they are and precisely how to help. Information inputted into the mobile app should be attached as call data and submitted to the intelligent routing system running your contact center. Options are then displayed and wait times are given in the app based upon customer value and the self-service options exhausted in your mobile app. For example, a customer should be queued to the Tier 2 technical support group if you know that they have already answered the first tier of troubleshooting questions using your mobile app. Additionally, customers should be placed in virtual queues until the proper specialists are available to help them so that they are free to play Angry Birds or conduct other business for the next few minutes until it’s their appointed time.
Let’s face it, the mobile app and the contact center are loosely connected at best and this is not only inefficient, it’s frustrating too. The mobile team and the contact center team need to collaborate at the risk of falling short of providing the full-service that customers are expecting.
