Customers have an incredibly powerful impact on businesses today. On the one hand, customer experiences that overdeliver on expectations can catapult companies to massive success without heavy investments into marketing. In contrast, the effects of a poor customer interaction with your server at a restaurant or a contentious interaction with your cable provider can cause ripples far beyond the revenue lost with that one person.
Think about that person telling a story about their experience to their family, friends, coworkers. Or worse – with a few clicks on a review service like Yelp, Google or Facebook your business’s reputation could be tarnished forever.
The rapid pace of technology, cloud and AI/ML services enables businesses of any size to understand these adverse experiences in real time and take immediate action. You can now proactively reach out to your customers across any digital channel to make it right and turn a negative experience into a delightful story they will share.
A long-standing innovation pedigree with Webex
There couldn’t be a more exciting time to be in the customer experience industry, and more specifically, to be a part of Webex. I would know – I’ve been both an admiring observer and user of Webex for many years and a decades-long active contributor myself to the communications and customer experience industry.
I still recall the fascination I had years ago when Cisco (with what is now Webex) first rocked the communications industry by introducing the ability to connect users globally via cloud-based meetings, calling, video, and even contact center solutions. It was a seemingly simple idea – but only a company with Cisco’s unique pedigree of powering the internet could bring it to life. Cisco has continued to grow that portfolio into the world’s most comprehensive collaboration solution set, including customer experience solutions that today serve over 36,000 customers and 3.2 million contact center agent users.
Webex enables people to do amazing things, ultimately making the world a better place. Cloud computing is in every part of our life, and intelligence is becoming more meaningful, helpful, and affordable for businesses. It’s helping customers see, express, and share their world in ways never possible.
This is the kind of game-changing innovation that made me want to add my contributions at Webex, by building technology that enables businesses to provide experiences that exceed customer expectations, using a set of communications services that work on anything.
The next frontier: reinventing customer experiences with Webex
The customer experience space is at a pivotal point in its history – much like hybrid work was accelerated by the large-scale global experiment created by a pandemic, the way customers engage with businesses has also forever been changed. Businesses can no longer expect customers to engage with them solely via phone – the new reality is that you must meet them where they are, on any technology, at any time. In fact, technology that connects the dots between every customer interaction with a business creates a new opportunity for a proactive, predictive, and personalized set of communications between customers and the businesses that serve them.
Another consequence of the world seemingly going virtual overnight is the elevation of customer service centers to becoming a central connection point between businesses and their customers. Beyond solving problems late in the customer journey, businesses now can differentiate their brand at every touchpoint along the way with personalized experiences that consistently exceed expectations.
Finally, the most satisfying customer experiences are created when business service teams have historical context, are armed with the right resources, work with intuitive collaboration tools with invisible, simple technology that anticipates the information they need.
Customer experiences become connected, engaging, and personalized
Let’s have a look at some of the latest innovations being delivered by our Webex customer experience solutions, with a specific focus here on our cloud contact center solution, Webex Contact Center.
Digital-first, delightful customer experiences
People communicate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The same should be true when a customer wants to connect with a business – it should be as simple as sending a text message to a friend.
It is now easier than ever for customers to use channels like Facebook Messenger and SMS with Webex Contact Center, with the integration of these as the first of the vast library of channels available using imimobile technology. We will continue to add more social and over-the-top digital channels utilizing this service throughout the year; stay tuned!
Personalized communications created by intuitive workflow orchestration
The new Webex Contact Center workflow builder gives businesses powerful capabilities to deliver personalized, context-aware communications to customers.
Using an intuitive and straightforward drag-and-drop canvas, business users can design communication experiences that take events from any business system or channel and instantly provide customers with relevant, timely information aligned to their needs.
Contextual experience management with immediate feedback
Webex Experience Management post-call surveys delivered via voice are now included as a part of each Webex Contact Center subscription, providing businesses a mechanism to gather immediate feedback on interactions and get visibility on potential ongoing improvements that can help continuously improve customer experience. Additional options for more extensive feedback collection via email, chat, and SMS are available as an upgrade option.
Business-wide collaboration that exceeds customer expectations
With the Webex App, agents can now see presence for anyone in the business, message internal subject matter experts for support, and provide a direct path for integrated calling and meetings functionality, all from the same central agent desktop they use today.
With the pre-built integration for the Webex App, businesses of any size can eliminate lengthy implementation cycles and quickly start using this feature.
I am honored to continue accelerating this trajectory – innovating and delivering the empowering technology that empowers Webex customers to provide experiences to their customers that exceed expectations.
Learn more about our innovative Webex Contact Center solution in the infographic Five reasons to choose Webex for your cloud contact center.
Learn more
Cisco + IMImobile: Delivering the Future of Customer Experience, Together [Blog]
The Future of Customer Experience Begins Now [Blog]
Webex Contact Center [Website]
Webex Contact Center [Recorded Webinar]