Competing and Winning on CX with Technology-Driven Solutions

By Mike Shonholz

Mike Shonholz

Today’s most successful brands are winning and differentiating themselves with customer experience (CX). Customer experience drives more than two-thirds of customer loyalty, outperforming brand and price combined, according to Gartner, but more than 70% of CX leaders struggle to design projects that increase customer loyalty and achieve results.

Contact center environments, especially, are facing unprecedented challenges. Due to the ongoing labor shortages prompted by “The Great Resignation,” for example, companies can’t always find enough people to hire for their open positions.

Additionally, the shift to remote and hybrid work has prompted workers to demand more flexibility. Together, this is having a tremendous impact on CX and resulting in poor customer satisfaction scores. According to a recent study by Contact Center Pipeline, 22% of contact centers say improving self-service is their number-one priority going forward.

Further compounding these challenges are customer expectations. According to a recent HubSpot study, 93% of customer service teams say customers have higher expectations than ever before. Further, Emplifi has found that 86% of consumers will leave a brand they trusted after only two poor customer experiences.

Spending Shift Can Alleviate Challenges

To help ensure customers don’t head to greener pastures, contact centers must look for ways to optimize CX at every turn. They can’t “hire” their way out of this problem. So, the question remains, how can they satisfy and delight their customers without overburdening their shrinking head counts?

The solution lies in the form of a digital-first approach that combines the power of next-generation technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, robotic process automation (RPA) and fractionalized labor to improve CX. By shifting dollars toward these areas, contact centers can effectively scale and drive efficiencies in ways that were not possible even a few years ago.

For channel partners, expanding offerings and capabilities in the area of CX is key to remaining relevant in the rapidly evolving contact center landscape. Not only does it get the partner closer to the “money engine” of the business, but it also enables them to create more “stickiness” with the customer by helping them solve the pain points as they move farther away from person-to-person customer interactions in favor of technology-driven CX.

Mike Shonholz serves as chief revenue officer for ARG, leading consulting, partnerships and marketing. He previously was director of CDW’s Aggregation, Infrastructure & Managed Services business from 2011 to 2018. He has been pivotal in establishing partnerships with leading industry providers, managing solution architects and developing offerings, go-to-market strategies and programs to solve client business challenges. You may follow him on LinkedIn or @my_ARG on Twitter.