The rising purchasing power of younger consumers and the proliferation of channels make it critical for retailers to innovate their customer engagement strategies.
As digital experiences become increasingly personalized, retailers need to have a holistic view of the customer to ensure optimal, targeted customer interactions. In addition to enhancing customer experience (CX), they also need to fully optimize digital technologies to manage supply chains and improve operational efficiency.
To resolve these challenges, leading retailers implement contact center-as-a-service (CCaaS). With CCaaS, they can connect customers and employees across voice and digital channels to increase the effectiveness of marketing, sales, and service.
Frost & Sullivan’s latest Executive Brief, Answering the Call of Today’s Consumers: How Retailers can Deliver Superior Customer Experience, provides a high-level assessment of contact center technology options across the retail industry. It also identifies the primary digital challenges for retailers globally and recommends ways for retailers to utilize advanced industry-specific technologies.
“As consumers who feel connected to a brand tend to remain loyal, retailers need to partner with technology leaders to gain a deep understanding of the CX and adapt quickly. Contact centers now play a central role in facilitating an effective and differentiated CX,” said Michael DeSalles, Principal Analyst at Frost & Sullivan. “Their ability to connect the stalwart and evolving digital technologies in retail through the contact center provides brands with the stability and agility needed to meet the demands of today’s consumers.”
The benefits of employing AI technologies in the contact center include:
- Ensuring cloud flexibility across terms and plans.
- Orchestrating customer data, employee data and system of record data through a comprehensive system of engagement capable of predictive routing and engagement.
- Utilizing open, cloud-based architecture that includes APIs or native integration with existing systems to extend functionality, including CRM, unified communication, voice of the customer, and more.
- Applying AI and ML technology to enable predictive engagement and next-best action, voice and chatbots, predictive routing, and workforce management.
- Having a single 360-degree view so that agents and other brand functions can understand customer intent at macro and micro levels to orchestrate the right engagement and service via the customer’s preferred channels.
- Demonstrating the ability to adhere to privacy regulations and data security requirements on local and global levels.
- Developing scalability and global reach to ensure consistent service across regions and to support seasonal shifts in demand.
