When we talk about contact centers the focus is usually on customer service processes, but what is modern customer service? The traditional view is that it is a post-purchase interaction where a customer needs help in some way.

But what about all the customer interactions that take place before the customer ever buys a product? Look at the social media interactions of any major brand – they will be talking to potential customers as well as interacting with existing customers and fans.

So the nature of what it means to design a customer service has changed. There is a stronger focus on the Total Lifetime Value (TLV) of the modern customer, meaning that there is a value in every interaction, even if it’s someone that has never bought from your company in the past, or the customer is a regular.

The way that the contact centre team interacts with customers is also changing – it’s no longer only about that post-purchase service process. There are many examples, such as:

Inside Sales

Managing a sales process with agents in the contact centre using various channels to reach out to potential customers. A typical example might be a company with a large existing customer base using some insight into their customers to create upsell opportunities – so the agent can directly contact the customer to offer an upgrade or additional purchase.

Content Moderation

A very important service for social media companies that want to ensure the safety of their users, but increasingly many companies are allowing user-generated content to appear on their own sites – such as product reviews on e-commerce sites. Your team of agents can check this content and approve it, helping to protect the experience your customers have on your site.

Account Management

Building a formal process around account management is always good practice and can ensure that once you have customers, you hang on to them through regular interaction. The account management team can schedule interactions with existing customers designed to encourage loyalty and address problems before they become major issues.

So the process of interacting with customers has dramatically changed in the past year because most contact centres are now a hybrid of employees inside the centre working with colleagues based at home. But the type of service offered has also evolved – this is a multidimensional evolution where the contact centre is becoming a much more strategic component of your business.

The contact centre is finding new business, ensuring your existing customers don’t leave, and ensuring that your customers always have a great experience when they need help. Ensuring these processes work well is now critical for business success – it’s a much bigger opportunity than just customer service alone.