Sales Director
88% of customers say that their experience with a company is as important as its products or services. With this in mind, it’s vital for businesses to adopt strategies that allow the smoothest customer journey possible. If you’re already using a unified communications platform, you’ll likely have benefited from connecting existing tools and software to your phone system.
But what if there was something more comprehensive? A model that tied all of your communication channels together, allowing staff to provide seamless customer service.
In this article, we’ll look at how uniting unified and omnichannel communication can boost your customer journey.
A Unified Communication platform (UC) allows users to seamlessly access data, share information and communicate with colleagues and customers. It does this by letting businesses integrate their CRM, email client and various other tools with their phone system.
Existing previously in a limited capacity, UC came to digital prominence in the early 00’s, with VoIP-based phone systems like Cisco’s 7970G. This model included an innovative touchscreen option, and was soon followed by IP phones, which counted web browsing and colleague availability among their features.
UC would later be adopted by a range of businesses, specifically call centre environments. It allowed them to integrate their existing business tools into their telephony model, promoting efficiency for their workforce and satisfaction within their customer journey.
If you’d like to understand more about UC, why not read our article What is Unified Communications?
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If UC allows you to pull together all of your business systems, then omnichannel adds an extra layer of consistency to your customer experience. For businesses, it allows your staff to view multiple communication streams in one place. This includes text messages, email, voice communications and instant messaging, often viewable from a central inbox.
H3: Seamless Customer Focus Across All Channels
With 40% of customers stating that ‘access to multiple communication channels improves their customer experience’, businesses need to be aware of why this is.
Some customers may prefer talking on the phone, while others looking for quick resolution may prefer instant messaging. By giving customers these options, they’ll feel in control of the situation, allowing you to deliver service in a way best suited to them.
28% of consumers say having to repeat information is the most frustrating part of their journey. This is where OC’s adaptability across multiple communication platforms is key.
For example, a customer may want to ask a question via live chat. If they find that they need more detail than the agent can deliver, the agent can transition the conversation to a voice call without losing the conversational thread. This reduces the likelihood of customer frustration and having to repeat their issue for the second or third time.
The unified communication element ties in by ensuring your customer's information and conversation history are available across all of these channels. This ease of access means employees have everything they need to deliver exceptional customer service.
VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) allows users to make voice and video calls over the internet, rather than traditional phone lines. VoIP acts as the overarching communication model, enabling unified and omnichannel communication to be integrated with your digital phone system.
Without a VoIP system in place, you’ll be limited to what UC and OC features you can use. In the past, the analogue nature of legacy phone systems meant most business systems like CRMs, phone systems and email clients had to be accessed separately.
VoIP’s internet connectivity allows the integration possible with UC, in turn allowing the OC elements like social media and live chat to sit on top of it. Without VoIP, businesses would likely return to a fragmented approach, having to access all of their databases and platforms separately and experiencing a drop in efficiency.
If you want to understand what VoIP is and how it works, our article What is VoIP? offers more detail.
The customer journey is a series of stages each customer goes through when communicating with a business. This starts with them becoming aware of your company, moving into areas like considering the product, buying it, your retention of their business and supporting your business going forward. Let’s look at how OC and UC work in tandem over three of these stages.
As customers weigh up their options, access to several communication channels can reassure them your business is the one they should choose. If they’re browsing your site, and find something that interests them, a live chat option allows your agents to answer questions that aren’t overly technical.
As simple as this sounds, it sends the message that your business cares enough to provide instant access to support, giving them insight into the service they’d receive if they became a customer.
Once customers choose you, it’s important to maintain the initial service that won them over. Offering them multiple contact channels caters to different customer preferences, while UC integration with CRM systems lets agents view previous interactions alongside current conversations. Agents can then deliver seamless communication, without customers having to explain their situation again.
Having information on file offers the additional benefit of personalisation. Customers don’t want to feel like a number, so using data provided to deliver a friendly, bespoke service increases your chances of retention and loyalty. It’s no surprise then, that companies doing this have seen an increase in revenue.
A consistent and efficient customer journey creates a fanbase. Customers won’t just love what you’re offering, but they’ll tell others about how efficient the build-up and support around it was. This will encourage new customers to look into your business, starting the cycle of consistent service again.
If you’re looking to transform your existing telephony operation into a more customer-centric model, here are some areas to consider when implementing unified and omnichannel communication.
Most VoIP-based phone systems have an element of unified communication built in. Platforms like T2K’s 3CX phone system allow integration with a host of popular software. This includes widely used CRMs like HubSpot or email clients like Microsoft Outlook.
However, other systems may only be compatible with certain software and programs, so it's worth checking before investing in them.
With omnichannel elements, you’ll need to ensure the devices your workforce uses to interact with customers are compatible with your communication channels. This means that wherever your staff are - whether remote working or in the office - they’ll be able to handle incoming customer communication easily.
Imagine you visit a website on your mobile; the chat function you require isn’t clickable and the font is too small to read. You’d likely leave, and so would 71% of potential customers.
With mobile devices now making up 58% of global internet traffic, businesses should ensure their customer communication channels are accessible across all platforms.
It’s also a great idea to equip any messaging services you have with chatbot features. This allows customers to get answers to frequently asked questions, even when your workforce clocks off for the day.
As with the introduction of any new system, training is a must. Though UC elements aim to make employee access simpler, it’s essential to ensure everyone is on the same page, as well as giving staff a forum to raise concerns.
Effective ways to support staff post-training include training resources for them to refer back to, alongside reassurance that support is available should they need it. You should also keep them in the loop with software updates or anything that may change the way systems operate.
Bringing in new ways of working is great, especially if the benefits can be passed along to your customers. With this in mind, it’s important to measure these successes and use them to make continual improvements to your system.
Utilising these systems works twofold. It gives customers a number of ways to contact you, but it also gives you the opportunity to ask if it’s working for them. Giving customers the choice to give feedback to you via any of your channels, or via surveys and feedback forms lets them know you value their opinion and intend to deliver the best service possible.
Having multiple contact channels in place gives you more customer data. With this, you’ll be able to see what they’re responding to, as well as what they’re not making use of.
Your unified communication system allows integration with other platforms, meaning you’ll be able to use your CRM to track these metrics. It’s important to understand which metrics benefit your business, but email opens, website visits, social media interactions, and call volumes are a good place to start.
As a business, you’ll know that no matter what you’re doing currently, there is always room for improvement. With the feedback and metrics you continue to gather, you’ll be able to zone in on the likes, dislikes, trends and any opportunities to make positive change.
Long term, you’ll be able to understand how your newly implemented channels impact areas like customer retention rates, average response times, and number of sales made as a result.
Bringing your staff together to ask for feedback is vital too. They work closely with these channels every day – so they’ll be able to help you identify any challenges, training needs or urgent fixes that are required within your new model.
A unified communication element allows you to bundle your phone system with other business tools and software you use. This allows employees access to data and resources instantly, creating smoother and more responsive contact with customers.
Adding omnichannel features allows you to utilise the efficiency of UC, while offering customers multiple ways to contact you. Staff are also able to access conversation histories, ensuring a seamless dialogue between you and your customers.
Paired with several easy ways to access support, these elements enable you to provide a smooth journey from initial customer interest, through to them advocating for you as champions of customer service.
If you’re looking for a communication platform that empowers your customers, speak to T2K today to learn more.
Having worked for T2k for nearly 25 years, it's fair to say that Lee is an expert when it comes to all things telephony and business communications. Overseeing the commercial side of the business, he has helped the company evolve and grow through the decades. In recent years, and with the advent of VoIP and hosted telephony, Lee has made sure that T2k is at the forefront of technological developments. With a firm interest in helping businesses navigate the world of telecoms, Lee is responsible for the majority of the content on this website.
