Millions of times every day, customers interact with organizations through their contact centers. Hundreds of thousands of agents across the globe are tasked with representing the organization which employs them in variety of sales, service, and support functions. More often than not, the contact center agent is the only "human connection" the customer will ever have with that organization. You have a question about your bill? You want to dispute a charge? You need help getting your computer to print? You have a question about that cruise in the Mediterranean you've been thinking about? Where are you, the customer, to go? Generally speaking, the contact center.
Since the contact center ends up "owning" much of the relationship with the customer, you'd think it would be a more respected part of the business. While I think that's starting to be true more often than it used to be, the contact center still doesn't enjoy as much prominence as it ought to. After all, the stakes are high when it comes to interacting with the customer. Just one bad experience can jeopardize or terminate a relationship all together.
Hopefully every interaction between customer and agent will result in a "moment of truth" … a tipping point where the customer is either delighted with the outcome (or at least has an appreciation and respect for the process). After having spoken with the agent, how likely is that customer to refer a friend to that organization? All this "setup" is to introduce the topic of this blog: delivering "moments of truth". There are a myriad of factors that go into making those moments of truth happen, and we'll be exploring them in upcoming posts.
Stay tuned!
