Every experience matters. First impressions matter. Qualtrics’ latest Global ROI of CX Report, based on a study of more than 17,000 consumers across 18 countries, proves this beyond a doubt. Their 2021 survey asking consumers about their experiences across 17 different industries shows that after a satisfying experience, consumers are:

  • 4.2x more likely to trust an organization
  • 5.2x more likely to recommend an organization
  • 3.5x more likely to purchase more from the organization

So how does your organization’s customer experience, especially their first impression, compare with your competitors’? 8x8’s Hunter Middleton poses questions every organization should be considering:

What makes an even bigger impression is the human interaction when it comes to customer experience. Consumer expectations around hold times and first contact resolution are even higher when they get to a human representative of your organization.

Here are three tools being used today to empower every employee in customer-centric organizations:

  1. Cross-company communication and collaboration. Customer-centric organizations have or are moving to an integrated platform so that contact center (CC) agents can communicate and collaborate in real-time with available subject matter experts via phone, chat, and other key unified communications and collaboration (UCC) channels to quickly answer customer questions and solve issues. A single company directory with real-time presence and collaboration provides agents with immediate expertise or the ability to hand off a complex issue or high-value customer with context.
  2. Unified business app integration. Consistent business app and CRM integrations across UCC and CC users not only reduce app-switching which costs valuable resolution time, but it also reduces mistakes, duplications, and security concerns caused when copying and pasting or conveying customer information and data internally.
  3. Shared analytics. When analytics and intelligence from customer interactions can be shared across sales, marketing, product development, and related departments, the customer journey improves; the customer experience improves; organizations move from being reactive to proactive, and a customer-centric culture is born or solidified. The Inability to capture and access operational data efficiently resulting from separate UCC and CC data silos is perhaps one of the greatest hurdles for organizations across all industries.

What happens when organizations move to an integrated UCC and CC solution to increase customer-centricity? Listen to Metrigy CEO Robin Gareiss as she reveals the firm’s new research in this area. The customer satisfaction (CSAT) and revenue improvements are astounding:

At 8x8, we call this integrated UCC and CC deployment model to help organizations be more customer centric XCaaS (Experience Communications as a Service). Learn more about it here or hear more from Metrigy in this Solve for X: Communications Choices for EX and CX Optimization webinar.