Omnichannel contact centers: Use cases, features and software

Enhance your customer satisfaction with the omnichannel contact center

In our always-on and constantly connected world, seamless and personalized experiences are expected at every touchpoint. Businesses must ensure their customers are served by a modern omnichannel contact center to meet these expectations. An omnichannel contact center employs voice, text, email, social media and other communication platforms, supported by modern technology and human oversight, to deliver superior customer service and support. Leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI), data analytics and cloud-based solutions in omnichannel contact centers empower companies to provide satisfying experiences to customers and agents, boosting the loyalty of both groups.

What Is an omnichannel contact center?

An omnichannel contact center is a centralized operation that manages customer communications and interactions across multiple channels, i.e. “omnichannel.” It handles queries and support requests by phone, email, SMS (text), chat and social media. An omnichannel contact center is more than just a mere “call center” and takes a broader approach, enabling customers to connect through their preferred mode, and at their preferred time, 24/7/365.

Benefits of an omnichannel contact center

Multichannel vs. omnichannel contact center: key differences

Integration

• Multichannel: Provides several independent communication channels which result in inconsistent CX and siloed and difficult to leverage customer data.
• Omnichannel: Seamlessly integrates communication channels for a seamless customer experience with consolidated data management.

Customer experience

• Multichannel: Single experience on each channel.
• Omnichannel: Integrated, consistent experience through multiple channels without loss of context

Data

• Multichannel:Disparate channels that may not align with each other
• Omnichannel: Customer data is available and coordinated through all channels to aggregate and analyze

Agents

• Multichannel: Need to switch between channels at times to serve customers and resolve issues
• Omnichannel: Single interface to address customers in their preferred channel(s) for better AX

Personalization

• Multichannel: Limited due to reduced access to data and preferences
• Omnichannel: Easier due to wider access to data, preferences, history and affinities.

Analytics

• Multichannel: Each channel requires separate reporting with data that may or may not be compatible with data from other channels.
• Omnichannel: All channels are linked and data and insights are derived from the integrated operations

Scalability

• Multichannel: New technology will be required as each channel expands
• Omnichannel: The system is built for growth — or contraction — without disruption

Technology:

• Multichannel: Separate systems that may not work or “talk” to each other. Potentially more expensive and resource-hungry
• Omnichannel: A unified system that seamlessly integrates platforms with necessary redundancies.

Consistency:

• Multichannel: Fragmented and unconnected customer journeys by navigating through multiple channels
• Omnichannel: Consistent and seamless customer journey with minimal, if any, interruptions

Impact to business:

• Multichannel: Less loyalty, poor CX due to lack of integration and consistency
• Omnichannel: Better CX, higher loyalty and more sales due to upsells with use of data through all channels and consistent experience.

Key components of an omnichannel contact center

Integrated and unified communications: No matter what channel customers choose — phone, email, SMS (text), chat or social media — omnichannel contact centers provide a consistent customer experience and seamless interactions.

CRM (Customer relationship management) systems: To collect and analyze data from customers without silos in a single system accessible to all relevant stakeholders.

Query direction: Using AI and machine learning, customers are routed to the best resources to manage their issues and resolve them more efficiently.

Knowledge management system: Product information, specifications, troubleshooting directions, FAQs and other information, available for agents and customers.

Workforce management systems: Scheduling shifts, allocating workloads, ensuring coverage, managing the ebb and flow of demand and other staffing concerns.

Analytics: A hallmark of omnichannel contact centers is their ability to leverage data and analytics to help customers, support agents and optimize operations. Insights into customer preferences, for example, enable upselling and cross-selling suggestions.

Customer-directed systems: Self-service options provide opportunities for customers to resolve issues or gain information to do so on their own without involving human agents. Chatbots, FAQs, and AI-powered virtual assistants reduce volumes and increase customer satisfaction.

Quality management: All channels are monitored to measure KPIs, including agent performance, first-time resolution and other factors to improve operations, increase satisfaction and ensure high service quality throughout.

Compliance and security: Information derived from customer communications must be managed efficiently and securely in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations.

Third-party integration: All systems must “talk to each other” and work in concert without speed bumps, disruptions or interference. Agents must be able to access necessary information regardless of channel and data must be uniform so it can be analyzed and leveraged.

Industrial use cases of omnichannel contact center solution

Retail

Retail omnichannel contact centers that deliver exceptional customer service drive sales and customer loyalty by efficiently managing orders and returns.

They support customer experience in the highly competitive retail environment. Here are several common use cases for retail contact centers:

1. Customer service and support: As a hub for customers seeking service and support, technical assistance and product information, omnichannel contact centers are a primary touchpoint.
2. Order management: Contact center agents accept orders, verify payment information, provide order status and tracking information, and issue return authorizations when needed.
3. Telemarketing: Promoting products and services through outbound calls to potential customers.
4. Affinity and rewards programs: Omnichannel contact center agents enable customers to enroll, check the point status, redeem rewards and handle other program-related issues.
5. Sales: Omnichannel contact centers in retail are fertile grounds for sales, upgrades and upsells. Agents, chatbots, GenAI and other platforms promote and recommend new products and services to customers. Product promotions, complementary products, special offers or discounts and cross-selling related items based on customer preferences and purchase history are typically offered in this context.
6. Appointments: In-store visits, service appointments and other instances that require specific dates and times are typical duties for retail omnichannel contact centers.
7. Omnichannel services: Retail omnichannel contact centers also serve e-commerce providers, assisting customers across multiple touchpoints, including websites, mobile apps and social media.
8. Data and analytics: Information drives decision-making on resource allocation, pricing, inventory, personnel and more. Omnichannel contact centers are uniquely positioned to benefit from interactions across multiple channels.

E-commerce

1. Customer service and support: As a hub for customers seeking service and support, technical assistance and product information, e-commerce contact centers are a primary touchpoint. Agents access customer data, purchase history and preferences for tailored assistance, resolving inquiries efficiently across multiple channels, including voice, email, chat, social media and messaging apps.
2. Order management: Omnichannel contact center agents accept orders, verify payment information, provide order status and tracking information, and issue return authorizations when needed. Agents assist customers across all channels, ensuring a smooth and transparent order management process.
3. Sales: Omnichannel contact centers are fertile grounds for sales, upgrades and upsells. Agents, chatbots, GenAI and other platforms promote and recommend new products and services to customers. Product promotions, complementary services, special offers, discounts and cross-selling related items based on customer preferences and purchase history are typically offered in this context.
4. Affinity and rewards programs: Omnichannel contact center agents enable customers to enroll, check their point status, redeem rewards and handle other program-related issues across all channels. Agents provide personalized assistance and targeted promotions based on customer loyalty status.
5. Returns and exchanges: Omnichannel contact center agents streamline returns and exchanges across all channels. They assist customers with return authorizations, provide shipping labels, process refunds and exchanges seamlessly, regardless of the original purchase channel.
6. Outreach: Omnichannel contact center agents engage in proactive outreach to customers through their preferred channels, offering personalized promotions, exclusive deals and product launches based on their interests and purchase history. Agents leverage customer purchase history and other data to drive sales and build relationships.
7. Social media engagement: GenAI monitors and responds to customer inquiries, comments and mentions on social media. Agents follow up, resolve issues with timely and personalized assistance, and engage with customers to build brand loyalty and positive sentiment.
8. Feedback and surveys: Omnichannel contact centers seek customer feedback and survey customers across all channels to gather valuable insights for continuous improvement. Agents encourage customers to provide feedback, address concerns and handle escalated issues.
9. Data and analytics: Information drives decision-making on resource allocation, pricing, inventory, personnel and more. Omnichannel contact centers are uniquely positioned to benefit from interactions across multiple channels.

Banking and financial services

1. Banking: Handle customer inquiries, retail banking support requests, account balances, maintenance and general questions on products and services.
2. Onboarding and account opening: Direct new customers through t account opening, including savings, checking and credit cards.
3. Loans and mortgages: Collect and verify customer information, direct them through applications, and provide application status updates and answers to other questions.
4. Credit cards: Account balance inquiries, credit limits, identification, travel use, activation, fraud prevention and payment information.
5. Investments: Account management, investment information, withdrawals, trades, purchases and investment advice. Provide personalized advice, budgeting and educational resources to assist customers in making smart financial decisions.
6. Dispute resolution: Screen customer disputes of transaction fees or unauthorized charges. Investigate and refer or resolve issues, communicating to customers throughout the process.
7. Insurance: Claims, coverage inquiries, policy questions. Payments, renewals and other coverage-related questions.
8. Fraud: Notify theft, check usage, confirm identity, report loss, respond to suspicious use notifications, password resets and more.
9. Feedback and surveys: Omnichannel contact centers seek customer feedback and survey customers across all channels to gather valuable insights for continuous improvement. Agents encourage customers to provide feedback, address concerns and handle escalated issues.
10. Data and analytics: Information drives decision-making on resource allocation, pricing, offers, promotions, personnel and more. Omnichannel contact centers are uniquely positioned to benefit from interactions across multiple channels.

Healthcare

1. Appointments: Omnichannel healthcare contact centers schedule, confirm, cancel and change dates and times for tests, procedures, vaccinations and examinations.
2. Medical advice: In emergencies or before setting an appointment for illness, omnichannel contact centers provide patients with a preliminary diagnosis and triage, if needed. Omnichannel contact centers prioritize visits based on medical needs. After surgery, omnichannel contact centers facilitate post-discharge follow-ups.
3. Referral management: Omnichannel contact centers facilitate the referral process from primary care providers to specialists, ensuring patients have prompt access to the appropriate level and type of care. They schedule appointments, transfer medical records, and provide referral status updates.
4. Prescriptions: Patients request prescriptions, refills or changes in medication through omnichannel contact centers, which can process and submit requests to medical providers, pharmacies and insurance companies.
5. Billing: Omnichannel contact centers are connected to patients’ data and well-positioned to handle inquiries, accept payment and issue credits, as needed. They can also provide information about fees, set up payment plans and help resolve disputes.
6. Records requests: Omnichannel contact centers, with requisite permissions, provide records, test results, medical histories and other documents to patients, providers and insurance companies.
7. Administrative support for professionals: Omnichannel contact centers are communication hubs for doctors, nurses, administrators and other staff. Scheduling, compensation, employment confirmation, recruitment and other human resources functions can be managed and communicated through omnichannel contact centers.
8. Feedback and surveys: Omnichannel contact centers seek patient feedback and survey customers across all channels to gather valuable insights for continuous improvement. Agents encourage patients to comment about care and services, address concerns and handle any issues.
9. Data and analytics: Information drives decision-making on resource allocation, pricing, offers, promotions, personnel and more. Omnichannel contact centers are uniquely positioned to benefit from interactions across multiple channels.
10. Mental health and crisis support: Omnichannel contact centers provide 24/7/365 access and support for patients with mental health issues and crises. Agents or GeneAI direct patients to trained mental health professionals to assess situations, provide counseling and connect them to appropriate resources.

Telecom

1. Technical support and customer service: Omnichannel contact centers handle customer service requests, including billing inquiries, activation and cancellation, troubleshooting for service problems, product and service information and other questions about service, equipment and billing.
2. Sales and retention: Omnichannel contact centers agents are informed and charged with selling new services and equipment and a range of upgrades to products and services, including handsets, internet plans, TV bundles and other offerings. They are also tasked with retaining dissatisfied customers who express dissatisfaction and request service termination.
3. Repairs and installation: Scheduling new service installations, repairs and maintenance issues. Customers reach out to omnichannel contact centers to set appointment times, for installation instructions, to report service outages, network issues and disruptions.
4. Equipment and device support: Omnichannel contact centers support devices, including troubleshooting, configuring and changing settings, and assisting with replacements and upgrades.
5. Fraud prevention: Omnichannel contact centers play a crucial role in identifying and preventing fraudulent activities. AI tools and agents are trained to recognize suspicious account activity, such as unusual purchases, usage patterns and unauthorized changes and act to protect customers and the company.
6. Billing and Account Management: Agents assist telecom customers with billing inquiries, accept payments, make payment arrangements, resolve billing disputes and discrepancies. Omnichannel contact centers also provide payment options and present promotions.
7. Affinity and rewards programs: Omnichannel contact center agents enable telecom customers to enroll, check their point status, redeem rewards and handle other program-related issues across all channels. Agents provide personalized assistance and targeted promotions based on customer loyalty status.
8. Travel support: For customers traveling abroad, omnichannel contact centers assist with activating international roaming plans, explain usage fees, limitations and service areas. They also troubleshoot service issues and any other concerns.
9. Data and analytics: Information drives decision-making on resource allocation, pricing, offers, promotions, personnel and more. Omnichannel contact centers are uniquely positioned to benefit from interactions across multiple channels to assist telecom customers.
10. Feedback and surveys: Omnichannel contact centers seek customer feedback and survey customers across all channels to gather valuable insights for continuous improvement. Agents encourage customers to comment about care and services, address concerns and handle any issues.

Media

1. Subscriptions: Omnichannel contact centers field customer inquiries and subscription requests, upgrades, downgrades, additions to service, temporary service holds and cancelations.
2. Technical support: Omnichannel contact centers assist customers by troubleshooting technical issues, login problems, streaming glitches, device compatibility and other service-related concerns.
3. Appointments: In-person visits, consultations, service appointments and other instances that require specific dates and times are typical duties for omnichannel contact centers.
4. Billing: Omnichannel contact centers are there for billing inquiries, accepting payments and managing accounts, including billing disputes, processing refunds, and anything else that is payment-related.
5. Suggestions: Based on customer data, history and preferences, omnichannel contact centers offer personalized suggestions for content, packages and product recommendations.
6. Ad sales: Omnichannel contact centers manage business inquiries on advertising, pricing, schedules, ad content rules and other matters related to advertising products and services.
7. Feedback: Omnichannel contact centers are ideally suited to gather customer feedback, opinions and suggestions about content and its delivery to improve quality and produce offerings best suited for its audience’s preferences.
8. Promotions: Omnichannel contact centers promote events and sales initiatives including TV shows, radio giveaways, subscription drives and other initiatives to boost sales and customer satisfaction.
9. Social media: Omnichannel contact centers using GenAI are perfectly positioned to follow, engage and respond to customers on social media platforms. They can also respond to tech and support requests and direct them to the appropriate venue for resolution.
10. Market research: Omnichannel contact centers leveraging AI can conduct market research and competitive analysis to gain insights into customer preferences, competing providers, trends and perceptions.

Travel & Hospitality

1. Reservations: A fundamental job for omnichannel Travel & Hospitality contact centers traditionally handled by phone but it now encompasses online, chatbots, social media, SMS and any other technology that enables customers to reserve rooms, plan events and make dining arrangements. Omnichannel Travel & Hospitality contact centers also enable customers to book airline and cruise tickets, select rental cars, arrange tours and plan vacations.
2. Customer service: Omnichannel contact centers provide information about accommodations, locations, amenities, transportation options, policies and procedures. They also resolve complaints and assist with changes and cancellations to existing reservations or bookings.
3. Affinity and rewards programs: Omnichannel contact centers facilitate customers to enroll, check their point status, redeem rewards and handle other loyalty program-related matters.
4. Sales: Omnichannel contact centers are fertile grounds for sales and upsells. Agents, chatbots, GenAI and other platforms promote and recommend new products and services to Travel & Hospitality customers. Product promotions, complementary products, special offers, tours, discounts and cross-selling related items based on customer preferences and purchase history are typically offered in this context.
5. Emergency aid: During emergencies and other unforeseen circumstances omnichannel contact centers give Travel & Hospitality customers support and assistance, working with local authorities and other service providers.

Features to consider when choosing omnichannel contact
center software

Omnichannel systems: The technology and people to handle inquiries through multiple platforms — voice, chat, text, social media and more — as the customer prefers. There must also be self-service options and anything else required to ensure excellent customer experiences.

Multimodal systems: To enable the management of incoming and outgoing communications with customers and others who contact them for support through Automatic Call Distribution (ACD), contact centers define how and where calls are routed.

Interactive Voice Response (IVR): Customers must have access to a system that recognizes speech and touch-tone inputs to enable self-service. This function is expected these days as a standard and serves to strengthen user-friendliness.

Computer Telephony Integration (CTI): For customers to access data and enable personalization, whether through self-service, agents or texts, CTI must be in place.

Workforce management support. Applications that assist human resources and management to maximize efficiency, avoid over-scheduling and anticipate peaks (and valleys) in volume and performance should be standard in any functioning contact center.

Data and analytics: Leveraging information derived from customer interactions across platforms to extract insights and generate reports from queries and the results of each contact. This is essential and includes agent responses and metrics related to products, services and customer-agent interactions.

Quality assurance: Quality assurance (QA) procedures including call monitoring, coaching and interventions to address anomalies and ensure customer service excellence, compliance and improvement.

Flexibility and scalability: Your omnichannel contact center must be flexible and seamlessly scale to accommodate your business. When there is increasing interaction volume and evolving customer demands, your omnichannel contact center’s agility is required, so seek solutions that provide flexibility with deployment (on-premises, cloud-based or hybrid) and other customization capabilities that align with your business.

Security and Compliance: It’s a must that omnichannel contact centers comply with all applicable legal and industry-specific security rules and regulations, such as PCI-DSS for financial transactions and HIPAA for healthcare-related processes, to protect sensitive customer data and ensure trust.

Omnichannel contact center strategies

Here are the things to consider:

• Define your customer service goals and how they align with your overall business goals.
• Determine your budget.
• Decide upon the best omnichannel contact center model: in-house, outsourced, cloud-based or a combination.
• Perform a competitive analysis; what other companies in your space are doing and how successful are they?
• Define use cases for your business based on your products and services and other relevant factors.
• Identify likely technology partners and match them with your use case.
• Perform the necessary due diligence before selecting the type of omnichannel contact center and your technology partner
• Assess the use of technologies such as ACD, IVR, CTI and CRM integration.
• Engage and train agents with the proper skill sets.
• Establish processes: call routing, quality assurance, sales and performance management.
• Iterate, optimize and scale the omnichannel contact center as your business needs change.

Get started with Startek omnichannel contact center software today

Startek^® Omnichannel Contact Center is a Contact Center as a Service (CCaas) solution that enables brands to deliver unique, personalized experiences on a scalable platform designed to grow with your business needs.

Inbound customer support: Route callers to bots or live agents as appropriate for fast, effective support

Skills-based routing: Ensure callers reach the agent best placed to meet their needs every time

Call-back: Improve responding to customers at the time that suits them

Outbound calling: Leverage dialers to boost productivity and guard against compliance missteps

Web chat: Proactively interact with engage them in the moment

Messaging: Interact with your customers at their convenience

Social channels: Meet customers on their preferred social network and assess call quality to uncover deep actionable insights to improve customer interactions in real-time.

Learn more here

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