Smarter contact center tech – Human touch drives next-gen customer experiences

Demographics have changed dramatically over recent years, highlighting differences between the tech-savvy generations – millennials, Generation Z and Generation Alpha – and the more digitally challenged Generation X and baby boomer groups. Clearly, frontline customer care teams are presented with new challenges in serving segments across a broad range of engagement channels.

In the financial services industry, one customer wishing to report a stolen card may appreciate the opportunity to self-serve through a mobile app, while another may prefer to verbalize their concerns over the phone or via online chat. Either way, engagement with customers on a channel that feels right for them can help deliver a satisfactory customer experience.

But what can influential brands and contact centers do to perfect these experiences and take them to the next level of customer satisfaction?

While a multichannel support strategy can serve the broad spectrum of customer care needs, a customer journey-first strategy makes the difference. Communicating across different engagement channels and switching touchpoints throughout the payment and customer service experience requires companies to adopt a smarter tech approach. By automatically capturing a 360° view of the customer journey and their vital engagement history, superior customer care, more personalized customer experiences – and more – can be achieved.

How do AI and machine learning improve contact center fraud detection?

As the number of customers seeking quick self-service through digital channels increases, implementing smart AI and machine learning-driven technology can deliver game-changing performance improvements. Modern technologies such as robotics process automation and AI-enabled capabilities, including natural language processing, not only drive conversational chat functionality and improved decisioning, but can also power speech analysis that detects sentiment to help with customer handling or raise flags for call center fraud.

With sophisticated fraud management services underpinned by smart machine learning algorithms and intelligent behavioral models, managed services agents are also able to elevate transaction defense and lead the fight against fraud with issuers and their customers.

How do managed services combine smart tech with human touch?

When an issuer’s customer reaches a managed service touchpoint, they expect a high-quality experience consistent with their chosen brand. Next-gen operating models can deliver on smarter learning tools for brand voice adoption, reaching any remote workers, too. This supports the broad mix of multilingual live agents and can expand the multilingual and conversational capabilities of virtual agents.

Embracing a human experience is the key to driving a positive customer journey that ensures inclusion among a broad customer base that encompasses the tech-savvy and the digitally challenged. Smart actions like callback assist buttons, for example, can help bridge the gap, along with human-led engagement campaigns. Efforts like these can proactively help customers with lower digital confidence move out of the cycle of digital division.

Smarter tech with a human touch in the right places at the right time has become a reality to power next generation customer experiences. By partnering with a managed services provider with resilient services, intelligent campaigns and integrated value-add tools, you’re positioned to amplify your brands and go the extra mile and meet the digital, diverse and evolving customer needs of the future.

Disclosure: This article was originally published in The Digital Banker.