Overcome Multichannel Customer Service Challenges

experience all kinds of interactions from the customer's standpoint. We tell them to call into their own call centers, experience the IVR, and observe how they are greeted by agents. Monitor calls. Visit the Web site. See how long it takes to get a response by email or social media."

Add customer contact channels in stages

All of this takes time, which is why the experts suggest starting slowly when implementing new channels. "You definitely don't want a big bang approach," Leggett urges. "Deploy incrementally, and then measure success and readjust your plans as you go along. Go channel by channel separately, and do a lot of A/B testing along the way. Start small, and make sure that your metrics for success are the same no matter the channel."

Stealey Reed also urges a slow, steady approach, experimenting first with nonvoice channels that can be easily routed through current technology or don't require major investment or integration. "If you don't already offer email, this is a logical place to begin," she says. "Email is the second most common channel, and its asynchronous nature will add less queuing and KPI pressure on the contact center."

Live agent chat, she adds, is another channel that companies can easily experiment with in terms of queue priority.

As a last piece of advice, experts warn that there's no shame in failure. "You really have to pay attention to your customer experience and be prepared to exit out of a channel if it simply doesn't provide the level of consistent service and quality that is necessary," Stealey Reed suggests.

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News Editor Leonard Klie can be reached at lklie@infotoday.com.

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