| | July 20166CIOReviewT: 510-565-7623Copyright © 2016 ValleyMedia, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or part of any text, photography or illustrations without written permission from the publisher is prohibited. The publisher assumes no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts, photographs or illustrations. Views and opinions expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of the magazine and accordingly, no liability is assumed by the publisher thereof.CIOReviewJULY - 15 - 2016Mailing AddressCIOReview44790 S. Grimmer Blvd Suite 202, Fremont, CA 94538T:510.402.1463, F:510-894-8405 July - 15 - 2016, Vol 05 SE 43 Published by ValleyMedia, Inc. To subscribe to CIOReviewVisit www.cioreview.com CONTACT CENTER SPECIALCIOReviewEditorial StaffSalesAaron Pierce Aishwarya KannanAlex D'SouzaAva Garcia Jade RayJoshua Parker Sebastian Jacobsebastian@cioreview.comVisualizersStephen ThomasArpita GhoshManaging EditorJeevan GeorgeAs startling as it may seem, subpar customer service is costing U.S. businesses over $41 billion a year. With such massive impact on the bottom line, organizations can no longer afford to overlook end-user experience. In fact, forward-looking organizations consider contact centers as their first line of defense in the battle for customer loyalty. Contact center operations spend has increased and the market is on a steady growth for the last five years. And yet, reports indicate that customer satisfaction levels are yet to witness a worthwhile spike. What more can enterprises do to gratify their customers?Quite a lot, actually. As customer communication moves across channels, enterprises need to ensure that they are capable of delivering consistent omni-channel experiences to not frustrate customers. To empower customer service agents to provide superior assistance in a multi-channel environment, it is imperative that companies increase the sophistication and intuitiveness of how they transition between channels. Adapting to such a holistic experience by deploying software that can easily escalate conversations from chat to voice or from web to voice will hugely benefit companies' efforts in tracking the customer journey while keeping the customer on their preferred channel.With the push toward omni-channel customer engagement, cloud contact center is becoming the norm in 2016. It has emerged as an essential weapon against the siloed legacy systems of the past. The speed of deployment, flexibility and scalability, and ease of operations of a virtual call center are too alluring to be ignored. As the increased security and efficiency of cloud drives Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) adoption, numerous other elements like automated self-service, video chat, and social media are continuing to transform the contact center landscape.Amid the organizations' rush to shift contact center operations into high gear, CIOReview presents to you a special edition on Contact Center Technology, featuring insights from industry thought-leaders and innovative technologies. We hope this special edition complements your endeavors to revamp your contact center strategies. Let us know your thoughts.Jeevan George Managing Editoreditor@cioreview.comEditorialThe Reign of Omni-Channel and Cloud
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