NewVoiceMedia: Orgs. Want Omnichannel Cloud Customer Contact Solutions

More organizations are demanding omnichannel cloud customer contact solutions, a trend that is reflected in recent report from global business consulting firm Bluewolf.

The Bluewolf report, sponsored by NewVoiceMedia, revealed 64 percent of companies will have three or more contact channels integrated with the Salesforce (CRM) Service Cloud in the next year.

Titled “The State of Salesforce,” the report also showed 70 percent of businesses are diverting their budgets from on-premise technology to cloud solutions.

“Customers expect companies to engage with them on the channel of their choosing. Leading companies are rapidly innovating their service organizations to meet this customer expectation,” Bob Furniss, Bluewolf’s customer care practice director, said in a prepared statement. “Solution providers … give enterprises a competitive edge by integrating and translating customer data stored in the Service Cloud into intelligent action to better engage, route and service customers.”

Other report findings included:

• 71 percent of budget owners are planning to increase their spending on Salesforce in the next year, with 12 percent increasing their budgets by more than 50 percent.
• 46 percent of C-level executives said using Salesforce has measurably improved their customer experience levels.
• Email remains the predominant integration (60 percent are currently integrated, and 19 percent plan to integrate), but telephony is quickly catching up with 44 percent of businesses benefiting from integrated voice and an additional 42 percent planning to integrate with this channel within the next year.
• 17 percent of businesses have integrated social media, and an additional 36 percent plan to integrate social media within the next year.

“Today’s customers are constantly changing their preferred contact channel based on where they are and what they’re doing, so it’s not surprising that organizations are increasingly seeking to meet this demand by investing in omnichannel contact center solutions,” NewVoiceMedia CEO Jonathan Gale added.

“The State of Salesforce” report evaluates how companies use, innovate and prioritize spending on Salesforce and is based on insights from more than 1,000 Salesforce customers worldwide.

Customer experience is a key differentiator for organizations

As more organizations explore the benefits of omnichannel cloud customer contact solutions, delivering a high-quality customer experience remains key.

“Customer experience is the key differentiator, and by doing it well, organizations can drive the customer acquisition, retention and efficiency that make leading companies successful,” a NewVoiceMedia spokesperson told Talkin’ Cloud. “Customers want personalized and engaging experiences every time, through every channel, from the steps they take to interact with a company to the agents they deal with.”

Omnichannel cloud customer contact solutions, meanwhile, could help more organizations better serve their customers.

“[These] solutions will greatly improve the service team’s efficiency, boost productivity and remove silos,” a NewVoiceMedia spokesperson said. “Agents don’t have to toggle between multiple screens to handle all contacts when they invest in an omnichannel solution that works within the Salesforce environment. This single, integrated desktop means a cleaner, simpler way of working and reinforces that channel doesn’t matter and that the customer is at the heart of every engagement.”

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