What if contact centers didn’t simply respond to problems but instead generated real returns?
Advances in artificial intelligence have businesses rethinking their approach to customer communication. Gone are the days of wishing for the best and responding when things go wrong. Today, it’s about taking the consumer by the hand and leading them down a path that is frictionless for them and profitable for you.
In our recent webinar, I had the good fortune of talking with Melanie Turek, head of connected work research at Frost & Sullivan, about how proactive CX is painting call centers in a whole new light.
“Historically, it was just accepted that the contact center was going to cost you money, and you did your best to keep those costs down,” Turek says. “We’re encouraging our clients to rethink that, and a big reason is because of the technology we have available to us today, especially around AI.”
Proactive vs. Reactive CX
Contact centers have long operated reactively, waiting for the customer to reach out with a problem and then doing their best to solve it. In a proactive CX approach, the business initiates contact before an issue arises (such as sending out a text to confirm an upcoming service appointment or popping up a chat bubble to offer help when a customer visits a web page).
Most companies that have embraced proactive CX have done so in hopes of bringing down their overall call volume, but we are beginning to see another, more exciting result.
“When you start inviting more customers along on this journey, you start to push into places you didn’t before,” Turek says. “It's no longer just about saying, ‘Hey, we think you're going to call, let’s be ready.’ It’s ‘Hey, we want to take you on a journey.’ And that places a great emphasis on the journey design itself.”
Preparing to Be Proactive
The move from reactive to proactive CX typically involves engaging significantly more customers than would have otherwise contacted you, but you will be pleasantly surprised just how many of those customers are willing to engage in the conversation you start with them.
But proactive CX can do more harm than good if contact centers don’t have the technology to respond to increased customer engagement. Turek cites the example of a company that sends text messages to clients reminding them of upcoming appointments but doesn’t allow them to respond to the text, which causes an unmanageable spike in inbound call volume. In this new dynamic, she warns, communication can’t be a one-way street.
“It’s not just a notification,” Turek says. “There has to be the potential for a conversation.”
When moving to a proactive CX approach, it’s important to choose the right technology to avoid driving spikes in inbound volume. ContactEngine, for example, has invested heavily in building AI tuned to proactive conversations, which enables it to achieve automation rates of over 90%; anything less than this level can cause problems.
While maximizing automation is vital, proactive CX systems must also be equipped to recognize when automation has done all it can do and get a real person needs to step in. The system must be able to understand when the issue has gone beyond what the system is designed to do and get a human involved quickly.
Making Better Use of Agents’ Time
It’s important to recognize that AI-powered proactive CX does not replace contact center agents; instead, it allows them to make better use of their time. Once AI is charged with handling the mundane (such as simple fault resolution or the rescheduling of an appointment), human agents are free to focus on chats and calls that require a more empathetic touch, such as customer complaints and complex problems.
While being proactive is likely to increase the average amount of time agents spend on the phone with a given customer, that shouldn’t be viewed as a bad thing. This is because customer conversations that cannot be automated represent complex cases that require more time to resolve, with agents really adding value and delivering far superior CX.
Realizing Real-World Results
All types of industries are realizing the benefits of proactive CX:
Retail
- Reminders to customers to restock products and services
- Help selecting products based on past or real-time search
- Reminders and confirmation of attendance at upcoming events
Healthcare
- Well-check alerts and scheduling
- Follow-up instructions and assessments
- Appointment reminders and e-check-ins
- Family and caregiver support
Travel and hospitality
- Airlines: flight updates, check-in, rescheduling, contactless payments, and entertainment
- Hotels: e-check-ins, amenity reminders/sign-up, concierge services, housekeeping, and check-out
- Restaurants: reservations, ordering, and payments
For many businesses, proactive CX is already going beyond improving customer service metrics to also boost the bottom line. For example, one of ContactEngine’s clients, a U.K.-based telecommunications firm, has seen a 10-to-1 return on investment from savings on wasted truck trips alone. By proactively reaching out to every customer with a technician visit booked, the company can find out when a customer needs to cancel well before the technician shows up and discovers that no one’s home. This is a great example of how being proactive not only delivers a great customer experience (every customer is informed and updated right up to their technician visit) but also simultaneously delivers actual operational expense savings.
As proactive AI continues to revolutionize contact centers, we can expect to see the financial benefits extend beyond savings to meaningful cash generation.
“The idea here is that as you improve customer experience across the journey and throughout the relationship, you start to see increased revenues downstream,” Turek says.
To learn more, watch our recent webinar, “Proactive CX Isn’t About Inbound Call Reduction.”