[ON-DEMAND WEBINAR] Reset for the Next Normal: The 3 Core Technologies Required to Thrive

Employee Engagement

Nicole Friedrich Marketing Specialist

Nicole Friedrich is a Marketing Specialist on the Demand Generation & Campaigns team at Five9. Prior to joining Five9, Nicole worked for various private companies and government agencies. Nicole graduated from Chapman University with a Master's in International Business Administration in 2017.

September 30, 2020

What is the new normal? And how can customer experience (CX) leaders ensure they are prepared for this next normal?

For many businesses today, the contact center is the first point of contact for customers and the only opportunity to deliver a brand experience that drives long-term loyalty. According to a recent McKinsey report, 75% of Americans have already changed brands during the pandemic. Therefore, delivering exceptional customer experiences with a contact center remains mission-critical for customer retention and for businesses to thrive in this new normal.

In a recent Five9 webinar, Dan Burkland, President of Five9, interviewed Nate Rempe, President and COO of Omaha Steaks. During this exclusive webinar Nate described their successful transition to a 100% work-from-home environment and the core technologies that will continue to empower their remote workforce to deliver exceptional experiences beyond 2020.

Below are the three core technologies that CX leaders are required to implement in order to be prepared for this new normal:

The Cloud: As more contact centers continue to operate in a work-from-home environment, the cloud is key to enabling a productive remote workforce and delivering the true experiences that consumers are now expecting. Firstly, the cloud eliminates the hardware burden and capital costs of a traditional on premises solution. The cloud not only reduces contact center costs but enables supervisors to monitor remote agent productivity from anywhere and allows your organization to have access to a larger talent pool. The cloud eliminates the physical barrier of an office and allows agents to service customers from home. In fact, the only tools your agents need are a headset, a desk and a great Wi-Fi connection in order to deliver exceptional customer experiences from home.

WFH + WFO = Success: Supervisors today can no longer “walk the floor” of a physical call center location. Therefore, workforce optimization (WFO) is now a necessary tool that allows supervisors to effectively manage a remote workforce from anywhere. With WFO, supervisors have access to rich tools, such as call center analytics and quality management capabilities (e.g. screen recording), that allow them to monitor performance from home and identify areas of improvements to enhance agent delivery. You can calculate your contact center savings here via the Five9 WFO efficiency calculator to help prepare for your remote work environment.

Integrated CRM is Key: Improving call center metrics, such as first call resolution (FCR) and CSAT is not possible without an integrated customer relationship management (CRM) solution. Any CRM, whether it’s custom-built or a third-party provider, can integrate with cloud contact center software. This ensures that agents have the full view of the customer journey when interacting with a customer and that the right customer is connected to the right agent at the right time. Overall, it creates an experience that feels effortless for the agent and extraordinary to the customer.

To learn more about the tools needed to maximize agent performance in a 100% remote work environment, watch our on-demand executive webinar with Omaha Steaks and Five9 for deeper insights.