Most companies understand the importance of implementing omnichannel support—however, despite efforts to provide customers with a seamless experience, 85% of organizations still have fragmented channels. This is especially problematic for businesses since a cultural shift is underway, driven by millennials who have little desire to get support over the phone, instead preferring text or messaging channels. This seachange in customer expectations impacts businesses because they have invested billions of dollars in voice-first contact centers, which are predominantly running on-premise software.
So what does this mean for businesses that have emphasized phone support? First, they’ll need to migrate their contact center infrastructure, as well as cross-train agents to handle multiple channels in pursuit of cost efficiencies. And beyond the expectations of millennials, companies will also have to factor in the rise of the Internet of Things (IoT), which means that an increasing number of customer service issues will be initiated by machines crying out for help (and they won’t reach out by phone). For example, while your human customers are off on holiday, their malfunctioning air conditioner or broken garage door could be firing off messages to field service repair teams—will your support organization be ready to handle those requests?
Being responsive to these changing customer service needs makes implementing an omnichannel experience increasingly important—and as studies have shown, doing so can drive customer loyalty, spending, and encourage users to become advocates for your company and its products. To help businesses get the most out of their omnichannel support, Zendesk has created the Suite Ready program, which enables Zendesk Suite customers to take advantage of apps that provide greater functionality for agents and customers alike.
For example, Stella Connect’s app gives Zendesk Suite customers the ability to capture real-time information about how agents are performing, which can be streamed in real-time to dashboards and performance leaderboards. “The Zendesk Suite offers the tools service-led brands need for frictionless omnichannel support,” says Alex Vlasto, Stella Connect’s vice president of marketing. “Through this new program, Zendesk Suite customers can now add a curated set of apps to their Suite instances to make them even more powerful and holistic support solutions.”
That greater functionality includes Ada Glass, an AI-powered, multilingual chatbot designed to help businesses resolve up to 70% of customer inquiries without getting a human agent involved. The app also intuitively connects customers with human agents when that personal touch is required. “Our favorite stories at Ada are about clients who can transform their customer experience by combining our personalized automation with live agent support,” says Mike Murchison, CEO of Ada. “That’s why we’re excited to continue our integration with Zendesk, now as their champion chatbot partner, bringing the benefits of our partnership to more enterprise businesses.”
