Customers remain loyal to brands that can deliver a consistent and personalized omnichannel experience. In fact, a 2021 report outlined that 59% of consumers would prefer communicating with a brand that facilitated seamless communication across channels. However, delivering such an experience is easier said than done for enterprises. A host of challenges hinder this delivery. Let’s profoundly discuss those and understand how they can be addressed.
The Challenge of Delivering an Excellent Omnichannel Experience
Back in 2017, the Harvard Business Review published a famous study of 46,000 shoppers. The study outlined how 73% of the shoppers leveraged multiple channels throughout their shopping journey. These shoppers were labeled as “omnichannel customers.”
Today, an omnichannel customer experience for enterprises is about seamlessly accommodating the customer journey across various channels. Each touchpoint effectively promises a point of sale.
At its core, an omnichannel strategy enables brands to get a 360-degree view of their customers and focus on resolving their problems and queries.
However, in the competitive telecom market, it’s becoming difficult for service providers to meet customer expectations. Here’s a rundown of the main challenges they face when dealing with omnichannel consumers:
Channel Integration
Channel integration in the context of an omnichannel engagement approach is fairly complex. Enterprises need to integrate all the communication channels and the systems accommodating them. For instance, they must integrate the website chatbot with the product recommendation system. But this is easier said than done because enterprises often find it difficult to:
- Remove and replace legacy systems that haven’t been designed with omnichannel capabilities in mind.
- Reduce data silos cropping up due to inter-departmental and software system fragmentation.
- Bring technical resources onboard that can help design, implement, and improve technological framework supporting omnichannel engagement.
- Manage the security concerns associated with the exchange of sensitive customer data between channels and enterprise systems.
What enterprises need is an API-first approach, a unified communications platform, cross-channel analytics, etc. These can help create synergy between channels for efficient customer experience management. Notably, implementation of such solutions requires thorough assessment of vendors.
Customer Self-Servicing
Along with an omnichannel experience, consumers expect self-service options. While businesses realize the need to set up a framework to accommodate self-service, they still fall short of expectations. As per McKinsey’s 2022 survey, around 77% of respondents had built digital care platforms. However, only 10% of those platforms were scalable and fully adopted by customers. In fact, only 20% of the platforms were highly integrated.
Without a concrete technology framework, most telecom providers would struggle to provide self-servicing options to consumers. Of course, AI-powered customer communication solutions can help address this problem. But for their implementation as well, brands need a well-thought-out strategy.
Customer Expectations
The telecom industry still suffers from a high customer churn rate, owing to customers repeatedly switching operators. This increases costs on the acquisition end and a loss of referrals. That’s never a good sight.
Providing excellent service to omnichannel consumers is challenging in the absence of a robust technological framework. With immense competition in the space, it’s essential that businesses:
- Constantly monitor satisfaction scores using KPIs relevant to specific engagement channels.
- Invest in modern infrastructure, software solutions, and skilled personnel.
- Aim towards getting a unified view of customers to personalize services and resolve issues before they escalate.
- Communicate honestly about service disruptions, pricing changes, and other critical matters directly linked with customer engagement.
How CPaaS Is the Best Solution for Omnichannel-Related Challenges
Telecom companies need a more coherent approach to implementing an omnichannel strategy. As consumers expect an omnichannel experience, telecom companies are best served by adopting cloud technologies like Communications Platform-as-a-Service (or CPaaS). With CPaaS, they can leverage the benefits of a real-time communication platform. This platform can help realize improved customer experience, cost reduction, and more profound customer engagement.
Here are some of the CPaaS features that make it the best solution to address omnichannel-related challenges in the telecom sector:
Seamless Integration
With CPaaS, companies can easily integrate customer communication with existing third-party applications or services like CRM. With an integrated CRM system, they can improve customer service, improve lead management, and track customer conversions.
Customizable Solution
CPaaS platforms are easy to customize according to the business needs. With customizable APIs and SDKs, developers can integrate call functionalities into their applications. They can do this by using core programming or low-code development tools.
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
CPaaS platforms (powered by AI) can deliver high-quality communication while minimizing network latency. Besides, AI-related capabilities like facial recognition, text-to-speech conversion, and analytics can further drive customer engagement.
Campaign Management
With CPaaS, telecom companies can create and customize marketing campaigns for their target customer base. Furthermore, they can track and monitor real-time campaign performance specific to each relevant channel.
The Way Forward
With the emergence of omnichannel consumers, telecom companies have a massive opportunity to improve engagement at every touchpoint. However, this requires them to overcome the various challenges discussed above.
Favorably, with the cloud-powered CPaaS platform, telecom companies can help realize a unified and integrated customer experience across various channels. CPaaS platforms also add relevance and context to customer conversations over their preferred channels.
At Globe Teleservices, we offer the cloud-powered CPaaS platform as a customer engagement solution for telecom companies. From CRM integration to chatbots, it houses capabilities to streamline customer engagement across operational channels.
Interested in learning more about how it can transform the omnichannel experience? Get in touch today!