Challenges

One of the challenges that multi-client contact centers face is the sheer amount of inbound and outbound calls, which causes clients to go looking for new communication channels. In some cases, this means that they will try to find communication channels outside of their multi-client contact center. That’s a loss to your business you cannot afford. Of course, if you have a good relationship with your clients, they will come to you and ask what your contact center can do to integrate new communication channels. This is where the challenge comes in.

Few contact centers have the requisite technological capabilities to smoothly integrate multi-channel communication. The back office usually lacks the organization to handle all of the challenges that come with this ambitious goal.

Cause of the challenge

Voiced communication (phone calls, VOIP, etc.) comes with a relatively high cost. As a result, many clients will search for different forms of communication that are less time consuming, such as e-mail, texting, WhatsApp and what have you.

The end customers have certain expectations that are based on their experiences with other websites. For example, many e-commerce websites work with integrated chat possibilities. This spoils the customers somewhat. When they find a website that doesn’t feature such possibilities, they’ll simply go and look somewhere else. These expectations continually change and evolve.

Costs

When these challenges are not met, multi-client contact centers will see their clients’ call volume decreasing. This puts a lot of pressure on their shoulders because the market is highly competitive and clients tend to see contact centers as a cost, not as something that generates money.

Recruitment costs will be higher. Because the contact center is now a multi-channel communicator, different skills will be required which will lead to quite a challenging re-organization.

Last but not least, support functions will have to be increased, which is also quite expensive, but the expertise is absolutely necessary to keep the multi-channel communication running smoothly. Inevitable hiccups will occur and then clients demand a quick and professional solution.

Goals

So what multi-client contact centers strive for? The final goal is this: to deliver the best customer experience by equipping the most appropriate agents with the right information at the right time.

If a multi-client contact center wants to find out how to reach this goal, they should contact SmartConnect.