How Millennials are Shifting the Cloud Contact Center in 2016

PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED TO TMCNET’S CLOUD CONTACT CENTER

According to Datamark, there are six contact center trends to watch this year. In case you didn’t get the memo, 2016 is already here; and the future of our cloud contact centers will to be reshaped by our millennial generation.  These young, social savvy professionals are hungry for innovation, full of passion and really hate to be tied down. They were born with a silver keyboard glued at the fingertips and are now powering a $2.45 trillion marketplace.

Everything powers on. Everything is connected.

One thing that often goes unsaid about millennials is that they are truly workaholics. Many of them are content with working around the clock and have leveraged this quality to quickly build and accelerate their careers. But, millennials are also full of adventure. They prefer to be “out and about” while doing business than cooped up inside staring at wall in between business transactions.

For this reason, companies are okay with investing into necessary resources to keep Millennials focused, happy and working around the clock. Because other millennials are also connected around the clock, they seem to find their way to one another on social media at all hours of the night. Businesses are learning that social media growth is definitely a resource they want to shift into the New Year.

The goal with social media is efficiency. Many of our millennials grew up with platforms like Yahoo! Answers and Cha-Cha in which answers are provided to them immediately with little effort on their behalf. These same millennials are now returning the favor and providing their on consumer base with the same efficiency they once craved. Doing this on an enterprise level is one thing, personalizing the experience is another?

Businesses are listening to their consumers now more than ever. Much of this is happening via social media and proving extremely beneficial in acquiring new customers and combatting negative feedback before it goes viral.

One Harvard Business Review shows that from 2013 to 2014, customer service has grown by 70 percent on just Twitter (News – Alert) alone. Couple this with the fact that Pinterest is named the most effective network for converting customers during marketing campaigns and that YouTube (News – Alert) has now become our largest search engine provider and the possibilities have become endless.

External devices that stick out of our computers and memory cards larger than a pinky nail have become irritating to us. We don’t like lugging them around – potentially losing them with valuable data in tote. Shoot, we don’t even want to bring the laptop with us any more.

We want to leave our table at Starbucks without worry of someone taking off with our previous devices. The set up and tear down even becomes a nuisance for a split-second purchase or at a time we just want to empty our bladders. For this, we have adopted the cloud and have made it the new norm.

We now have ability to connect to extensive storage systems access programs at a distance and we can even connect directly to another human, as we collaborate to launch our new product line – from the middle of the Grand Canyon. 

Life has become more flexible, and we owe it to cloud. And, while 13 percent of our workforce still refuses to adopt this technology based on security paranoia—a majority of our corporate world rather not have it any other way!

For the most part, the millennial generation is constantly found texting. If they had to thumb wrestle for their next dinner, they would be the new gladiators. By 2017, Millennials are expected to surpass the baby boomers; who are now retiring and stepping down to less demanding positions.

Millennials hate sitting through telephone prompts. Why take a survey via inaccurate touch-tone keypads when we can reply to a text message? Without major providers raping us for short codes like they use to, consumers find it easier to interact with their favorite brands via text. In fact, they prefer it … especially if the conversation circumvents a discount or exclusive offer!

These same brands can choose to upsell products and services to their consumers thanks to the level of customer satisfaction that they have already cultivated. In fact, it is this same customer satisfaction that is leading companies to throw old mentalities completely out of the window.

 When measuring call quality, they are learning that volumes and call times aren’t always the best indicator of good quality service. Very often, good quality service comes from an agent taking the time – no matter how long it takes – to understand their audiences needs and handle issues right then and there. In fact, the more time spent listening to the customer, the better the agent can paint a picture of the crisis.

The loyalty that is gained from a customer who feels important and has just found a solution to their problem is priceless.  Rushing customers off the phone will only make them irate and teach them to distrust a brand that has them forking over hundreds of hard earned dollars every month.

A positive response rate and an amazing customer experience will lead to work of mouth opportunities that the brand can cash in at a later date.