Even before the coronavirus pandemic caused millions of businesses to rapidly embrace a teleworking culture, the customer experience paradigm had changed. Digitally connected customers, engaging brands across multiple channels and devices had upped the CX ante. Brands had to adapt and be able to deliver faster, holistic experiences across all their various engagement points. Put simply, customer engagement had to undergo digital transformation.
Naturally, it starts with an onmichannel experience to ensure customers have access to the brand however they choose to communicate. But, the speed of service also had to be taken to new levels to keep up with customers’ fast-paced digital lives.
Thrio CMO Lance Fried explained it like this, when I asked him about the new world of customer service before he participated in a panel discussion on digital transformation at ITEXPO 2020 in February:
“Today, customer service is a critical means to differentiate you from your competitors. Yet, delivering memorable customer service continues to get harder and harder to do. That’s because customers have more power than ever. They demand to be able to communicate with you on their terms and their channel preference. They crowdsource for opinions, and they self-publish to their social networks the good, the bad and the ugly customer service experiences they have with your company. Today, you need to better align with your customers to vastly improve the customer experience and to set your company apart or they may no longer be your customers.”
The best way to increase the speed of customer service without sacrificing quality is by leveraging artificial intelligence. That’s what Thrio developed with its CCaaS platform, built on an AI-powered decision-making engine that orchestrates microservices to simplify and optimize agent workflows. The solution provides automation tools, a complete omnichannel experience, voice engine, and AI-driven, applications, including routing, journey management, personality and sentiment analysis, personalized scripting, and more, to enable agents to react more rapidly to customer needs.
TELUS International, which focuses on the digital transformation of customer experiences, has partnered with Thrio to launch TELUS’ Cloud Contact 360 (CC360) platform, as part of its cloud-based teleworking solutions.
“The launch of our CC360 platform in partnership with Thrio is another exciting step in our ongoing journey to increasingly deliver superior customer experiences by leveraging agile and innovative AI-powered solutions and the cloud to shift the competitive landscape,” said Jim Radzicki, Global Vice-president, Strategic Partnerships, TELUS International.
The customizable, cloud-based solutions allows customer service organizations to deliver faster, better customer outcomes and to drive new revenue opportunities through AI-driven customer insights. The next-generation technology also allows businesses to adapt to changing market dynamics, including the current teleworking trend driven by the spread of the COVID-19 virus, which has infected more than 750,000 people globally and has forced millions of businesses to immediately implement remote work strategies.
The long-term benefit is that, once implemented, businesses can enjoy the flexibility and productivity gains well beyond this global crisis, and will have the tools to deliver exceptional customer experiences into the future.
“Today’s customers are more demanding than ever. So, you need to better align with your customers to improve the customer experience and to set your company apart. Reset your customer service mindset to one of being the “front and center” contact point of your company with the consumer. Ultimately, this shift will help you build brand and product loyalty with today’s modern customer,” Fried said.
Cloud and AI are the path to building loyalty with the modern customer: Gartner predicts that, by 2023, 40% of all customer interactions will go through AI. That number may be driven even higher by current global conditions that have customers increasing their use of digital channels to communicate.
The latest trends in customer engagement and experience, UCaaS, and how Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning can benefit both customers and internal users is the crux of Future of Work Expo 2021. Taking place at the brand new Miami Beach Convention Center, June 22-25, 2021 as part of the #TechSuperShow. Future of Work will again sit beside its collocated events – ITEXPO, SD-WAN Expo, MSP Expo, IoT Evolution, The Blockchain Event, and more – to deliver a compete learning and networking opportunity for business leaders who need to know what new technologies will drive their companies into the future.
Edited by
Erik Linask
