Kathy Sobus

Pandemic this, COVID that… enough already, right? The situation was supposed to be temporary, but is it really? Many organizations I’m working with now are in a planning phase, and they aren’t planning for everyone to return to the office.

As the world struggles with the fallout from COVID-19, all aspects of life are quickly changing. Millions of workers are now working from home or other remote locations outside of the normal security configurations of an office. Fraudsters are taking advantage of this disruption to actively steal information that they can monetize. In many cases, companies were not prepared to deal with a large work-from-home workforce, and when they transitioned their employees to remote environments, they mainly considered threats like phishing or cyberattacks.

What is that one question that you’re answering repeatedly, every day?

The “bad guys” don’t sleep.

Now that we’ve thought about customer engagement and satisfaction, and remote employees/contact centers, we should turn our thinking to strategy. None of us at this time know how long we will be working remotely, or when life will return back to a level of normalcy we had prior to March of this year. One thing is certain, especially during this uncertain time: employees and customers will have questions and requests outside of the norm we experienced earlier this year. Because of perceivably higher volumes of contact into your organization from both employees and customers, perhaps it’s time to think about how you can enable those elements in a mid-term strategy that you can maximize when we return to “normalcy.”

These are times that many of us have never lived through or previously had to adjust to. Children have been sent home from school and for many college students, the rest of the semester is now adjusting to an online format. As for employees, most of our clients are asking for ways to allow their employees to work remotely. Mostly, with contact centers, they are the first ones to be tackled. This blog provides thinking beyond the technical aspects needed for a successful transition.

Whatever you want to call it, we’re all “in it” right now and struggling to find a new normal for our daily lives. As far as our work life is concerned, companies around the globe have been working tirelessly to handle the demand, both from a customer side and an employee side. Although the examples represented below are not of a life-altering or threatening nature, they are used illustratively to provide guidelines on how we should be behaving with our customers during this uncertain time. We are all hopeful that the damage from this pandemic will be minimal and we will be back to normal soon. 

Why don’t companies want to make their IVRs more profitable?

We live in the era of the Internet of Things (IoT); with a Wi-Fi connection and a smart phone, the possibilities are endless. Connectivity is now so integral to our daily lives that we often take it for granted. In fact, an Internet Trends report shows that nearly 90% of U.S. adults use the Internet. It is important to design support solutions that align with the way your customers work and live. However, even in our wired world, human interaction still plays a critical role and you can leverage technology to give your customers the best of both worlds.

In part one and part two of this blog series, we explored the reasons why customer experience and the role of the Chief Marketing Officer are evolving, and how you can respond to those changes. We'll now into the future of CX and marketing.

Marketing continues to be about brand and demand generation; however, data and changes in the way customers interact with companies have provoked a complete transformation of the function. Customers used to speak with salespeople or the contact center about product details and offerings, but all of this information is now available online. Customers are more resourceful and self-reliant than ever before. They are educated and oftentimes are simply seeking validation of their choices.