Global Partnership between GoContact and Transcom

Transcom and GoContact have entered a global cooperation agreement wherein Transcom will use GoContact’s cloud Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) platform.

Transcom was the world’s first service obtaining the COPC CX Certification on a Work from Home environment in 2019. GoContact’s cloud CCaaS solution allows Transcom to continue on this pioneering path, both in the traditional contact center model but also allowing agents that are working from home to maintain proximity to customers that they serve, also giving the coordination teams, full control over the operations and services levels.

“Among the decision factors to select GoContact technology were the fact that it is a native cloud solution with 24/7 availability and business continuity built in, but also the strong know-how and operations expertise within the GoContact team. This is a robust solution both for traditional contact centers and for our remote workforce”, says Jennifer Wells, Head of Contact Center Services, Transcom.

“For me it was a great pleasure to be invited by Transcom to compete in its RFP with the biggest worldwide players of this sector and, of course, to have been the partner of choice.

From the beginning there was a strong empathy between several teams, such as Systems Infrastructures, Security, GDPR, Operations, it was a long and hard process where we passed step by step all Transcom’s requirements. In the end, in my opinion, the biggest difference was the huge knowledge that we all have in GoContact over the market of BPO’s and that is in our DNA. We are strongly motivated to grow worldwide with Transcom“, says Rui Sousa Marques, CEO, GoContact.

GoContact has developed several innovative solutions, many of them in the Artificial Intelligence area, with partners such as Google Cloud, and in less explored areas, such as voice Bots. A culture of innovation that is in the company’s DNA and that will allow Transcom to continue to deliver smarter people experiences, increasing loyalty and boosting growth by improving quality and operational efficiency.

This agreement comes shortly after GoContact entered again and for the second consecutive year, for the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 EMEA. This program is an objective classification of the sector that recognizes the fastest growing technology companies in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) in the last four years. This classification reflects the growth and global expansion strategy that the company has been developing in recent years, which has led it to extend its activity in Europe, Africa and LATAM. This entry in the ranking is made by the second consecutive year, which comes to strengthen GoContact’s position in the software market but, in particular, in CCCaaS, consolidating its differentiating position and its motto: Empowering Operations.

About Transcom
Transcom is a global specialist in customer experience, customer service, sales, technical support and billing services through 26,000 customer experience specialists, at 50 contact centers and a large network of home agents, across 22 countries, delivering services in 33 languages to international brands in various industries.

About GoContact
GoContact is a company specialized in integrated solutions for Contact Centers (IPBX + Contact Center Software + Communications), which developed from scratch a voice platform and Contact Center in IP architecture, cloud based. It’s been in the market since 2013 to ensure the security and robustness of operations and to reduce the technological complexity in Contact Center management, eliminating the barriers between people and technology. With international presence, it’s operating in distinct markets such as Portugal, Spain, Morocco, Angola, Colombia, and others.

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Which is the Secret to Establishing a Good Business Relationship with the Customer?

What do we mean when we talk about customer relationship?
It is a very comprehensive topic that implies many areas, but I will only focus on the so-called “Business relationship”. Much more than a name, not always well-known, is, in my opinion, a concept and a way of approaching life.
Not having the profile for an “impinged” sale, an absolutely decisive premise for the customer relationship process to be a success is to believe in the quality of what is presented and the added value that the product or service will represent for the customer .
Believing that this relationship has to be based on transparency and honesty, like any other type of relationship that is profitable and lasting, this is the essential starting point.
Of course, in the negotiation phase, there can always be a difference between the proposed value and the value that the customer is prepared to recognize to the added value that will benefit. But up to that point of eventual disagreement, the more frank and cordial the relationship, the greater the chances of a successful solution for both.
How do you get a good relationship with the customer? Common sense may indicate that smiling, although not sincere, agreeing, even if not meaningful, will be the best way to establish a good relationship.
However, I do not believe that this is the best or the most lasting approach. I believe that a good, solid, and strong relationship with a customer is built in the same way as a personal relationship. More than just listening, really listening; more than just agreeing, understanding and explaining. These are some of the bases that should serve as a foundation for the relationship to solidify in a positive and cordial way, but they are not the only ones.
It is necessary to be present. As Woody Allen said, “80% of success is showing up.” However, I believe that, in this case, you have to do more, it is necessary to be with the customer, to feel and understand their emotions, whether professionals in relation to the product or service, but also their values and convictions.
This is the only way we can definitively put ourselves “in the customer’s shoes” and understand what their pains are, what their motivations are, what their patterns are, in order to create not only an ever closer relationship but, above all, be able to, on the one hand, anticipate their concerns and longings, and on the other, respond assertively to their needs. Thus, it will be possible to surprise the customer in a positive way and, in that way, be a clear asset for the customer and for the institution he represents.
Only an honest, strong and healthy relationship can be lasting. Resisting together in the less good moments that will surely exist, but above all nourishing in moments of victory and growth that together you will share and savour.

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How to build the customer’s loyalty through a good support service?

With the proliferation of competition at a time when speed of consumption is fast, brands increasingly need to position themselves in the minds of their customers as their favourites, so that they are not easily replaced by competing brands.

For this, it is fundamental to understand that every interaction of customer service, whether online or offline, has the potential to generate loyalty and trust, even in issues that seem simpler to us.

Be proactive

This is one of the key points for the customer to feel totally loyal and familiar with a brand. The concern with solving their problems and even meeting and overcoming these same problems allows the consumer to choose the brand spontaneously, mainly because of his previous positive experience. It is not just a product that makes a mark, the experience around customer service is critical for a customer to decide to continue to buy a particular brand.

The anticipation of the customer’s next question is one of the moments in which the customer can feel part of the brand, seeing it as a solver and an ally in solving his problems.

Customization

Knowing your customers, offering them a personalized service according to their needs or even through their reality and buying trends, is the key to making the customers totally loyal to the brand.

When a customer is treated by his or her own name, it increases the brand satisfaction indexes and, added to that, if the employee shows that he knows and is interested in some personal aspects of the customer’s life, above all with regard to the use of the product or service, the experience around the brand goes far beyond satisfying the product quality.

Reduce customer effort

Focusing on reducing customer effort is one of the satisfaction metrics that becomes increasingly targeted for greater attention as it will help your customers re-purchase the brand, building their long-term loyalty, and attracting new customers.

A number of measures can be taken to reduce customer effort, such as creating experiences and procedures that are easier for the customer to understand and use. However, a large part of customer effort reduction refers to interactions and relationships with employees, through quick responses and problem solving right from the first contact, making customers happy and satisfied.

Ask for Customer Feedback

By collecting customer feedback, it not only allows you to identify what needs to be improved but also to give importance and value to his opinions. Feeling that their opinion is crucial to a brand is a way for customers to remain loyal by believing in the potential for continuous improvement that the brand has to meet their real needs.

Reduce employee effort

Reducing the effort of employees is also important in improving the customer service experience. If for them it becomes easy to provide the service, it also becomes a better and smaller effort experience for customers. Well-trained employees with high customer empathy create better support experiences, making it easier to reduce customer effort and, consequently, brand loyalty, and positively affect employees’ motivation.

These points, when applied efficiently, can make the customer service experience truly memorable, which is the basis for satisfaction and loyalty to a particular brand. The GoContact platform intends to add this WOW factor to the entire on-the-go experience, providing features that reduce not only the employee’s effort, making him more committed and motivated in the work to be performed, but also reduce customer effort and increase customer satisfaction, through a unique, personalized and proactive service.

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Being a Contact Center agent is not easy: We know what you are talking about!

“There’s no better way to understand a job than to actually do it; you know what they say about “walking a day in another man’s shoes.” First-hand experience of employees’ jobs — especially those of front-line employees — can be invaluable for senior executives. It puts managers intimately in touch with the wants and needs of those closest to a company’s customers.
This is especially true in call centres. Understanding call centre employees and their roles can help executives make an impact on how employees and customers feel about a company. Making the call centre a stop along a senior manager’s career path — even if for a brief period of time — is essential in maximizing call centre potential. Even though call centres are often ignored, they are integral in creating an engaged customer base and, in turn, building profit and increasing stock value”.

Gallup, 2005

The work of a Contact Center agent is demanding and challenging, the training course can be long and the period of stabilization – until the call gets the required quality – is not immediate. Being able to discern the moments to speak and the moments to listen, develop active listening skills, resilience, patience and, above all, dealing with rejection when it comes to outbound phone calls are challenges that only those who experience it know how difficult they are. It is through experience that you gain the valences necessary to know how to respond confidently, taking ownership of the information that is given, safely, and transmitting it exactly to the Customer.

At GoContact there is the basic premise of recruiting people who, when they have direct contact functions with the Customer, regardless of their hierarchical degree, have a background experience in the world of Contact Centers. We believe that this knowledge is fundamental and structuring to know exactly what our Customers are looking for and we believe that it makes all the difference in the way we work and accompany them.

With the main mission of giving strength and autonomy to Contact Center operations, we know that this know-how allows us to understand our Customer’s language, which facilitates all interaction. Having experienced many of the same experiences, our teams understand the main concerns and goals of the end customer.

This HR policy aligned with the focus on the Customer forces the search to be thorough, but the return is rewarding. We believe that by offering integrated services that strengthen operations, with this knowledge of the cause, we can respond with confidence, passion and be even more differentiating.

“Why is intimate knowledge of the call centre so important? It’s the best way to get insights from customers on how they perceive your business. Add that to the insights you can get from the call centre employees, and you have a panoramic view from which to lead”.

We know that our Customer’s employees show their face daily for their business. Our mission is to facilitate their day-to-day life so that they can provide the best possible customer service experience.

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The Future of Contact Centres – are we getting ready to replace people?

A lot has been said about the future of the Contact Centre. As another disruption time passes, thanks to Artificial Intelligence, it is extremely difficult to forecast or even have a glimpse of what the future of the Contact Centre might really be.

This new technology wave, which brings with it a promise of extreme disruption, has the ability to make even the most peaceful ones shiver.

It is the first time in the Contact Center history that we are talking about replacing people who every day perform the essential mission of providing support to the customer.
This conversation is based on the potential financial efficiency gain and the potential operational efficiency gain of adopting Artificial Intelligence related technologies.

We started this process with timid chatbots but technology quickly went on and created the promise to create disruption in quality departments in email automated responses and even in the interactive voice response through the combination of voice recognition techniques, machine learning, natural language and text to speech.

Rui Marques Opinion – GoContact CEO

It has been my mission at GoContact to pay close attention to these trends and technologies and these past years I have had the privilege to participate in important events of this technological area, such as Fosdem and SpeechTek, and I had the opportunity to have a chat with leaders of important projects such as Mozzilla DeepSpeech and Google Dialogflow and what makes me write this article today is that right now, I have no doubts about the potential to apply these technologies at the service of people, but I am aware that, without reservations, the time to replace the agents by technological mechanisms is not yet here and I have serious doubts that it will ever be fully here.

I have been wondering about the answer to the question – What is the future of the Contact Center? – and this has taken me deeper to try and understand truly which is the Contact Center mission:

● Why is there such department in companies?
● Why is it so controversial?
● Why does such department need so much technology?
● Why does it have the ability to have a huge impact on the success or defeat of a small or large company?

My opinion is that the mission of a Contact Center is so simple and true that we often forget what it is. The Contact Center mission is to service its customers so that the customer feels motivated to reinvesting a part of such value created into the company which results in more business deals or new business deals.

This is, in my opinion, the real mission of the Contact Center: add value, as much as possible, in each interaction it gets.

The Role of GoContact in this mission

Based on this mission and considering the role I have in the industry, the next question is how do I and GoContact help the Contact Center to perform such mission?
How can we, consistently and continuously, add value through technology or services so that the Contact Centre can perform its mission on a daily basis? Or better yet, not only perform it but, thanks to our participation and investment, leverage its performance ability, creating more value for each of its customers?

After considering the different angles of the Contact Centre mission and, in the light of this new technology wave, it is clear to me that there is no ability to perform this mission without people, without agents, without supervisors, without managers and all those people and roles who are part of the Contact Center ecosystem.

These people, of whom I am part of, and probably you too, are the most essential element and the only part that cannot be subtracted if we really want to perform this mission successfully.

Thus, it is clear to me that my strategy as a technological solutions manufacturer, the strategy and mission of GoContact in this market is to help people. But more than helping, it is empowering the performers of the Contact Center mission, working so that every day these people do not have to worry about anything else but adding value to all interactions happening at their Contact Center.

The easiest way to leverage the vast talent that we have at our Contact Centers is to empower the people who work there every day. We must give them the ability to consistently perform their work so that technology is not a barrier that they must jump over, and so that they can face challenges on a real time basis and experiment new things, make decisions and implement them, measure the results of the changes and, at the end of the day, make the customer more satisfied and fulfill their fundamental mission in their roles as warriors that defend excellence in customer service.

For this reason, and within this perspective, at GoContact we state that our mission is to empower operations, it is to empower people who are part of large teams with the important mission to add value in a continuous manner into all interactions performed at a Contact Center.

Regardless of future technological trends, GoContact will continue extremely focused on helping operations, leveraging the potential of these people on a daily basis because we know, without a doubt, that the future of Contact Centers implies going back to basics, to the origin, to what makes us humans and which is the cooperation and mutual help to improve our societies.

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Agent Experience or Customer Experience: which is most important?

At a time where it is increasingly frequent to be worried about the customer experience, companies choose to set up strategies of market positioning to meet the customer needs and expectations which are increasingly connected and exposed to competition.

Nevertheless, companies focus on meeting the customers’ expectations so much that they sometimes neglect the needs and expectations of internal teams. This can result into the agent’s motivation decrease which causes friction with the company and lastly, a negative support experience for the customer.

Two questions arise:

· Does a satisfied customer create a satisfied agent?
· Does a satisfied agent create a satisfied customer?

The Agent/Customer Relation

Consumers tend to humanize brands with which they relate in order to feel them as closer to them through the values these try to convey.

Contact Center agents have a key role in this process of humanizing brands in as much as they represent the brand and sometimes they are the closest and more visible element, boosting the relation between the customer and the brand. Therefore, it is crucial that customers identify themselves with the agent to give even more credibility and notoriety to the brand they represent.

In other words, the agents and customers‘ experience is fully connected and depend on each other. The focus must be to improve customer service through a strategy of improving the support experience and consequently the agents’ motivation.

According to Richard Branson, “Clients do not come first. Employees come first. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of your clients!”.

Success formula

The following is the success formula so that your Contact Center can achieve an excellent positioning not only in your customers’ mind but also in your agents’ mind:

Support Experience = Customer Experience + Agent Experience

By highlighting the important of agents and customers, we get satisfied agents as we reduce the turnover rate, which means agents stay longer at their post, becoming more experienced and efficient and decreasing costs with a collaborator’s loss and recruiting and training of new employees. On the other hand, the response time and the customer waiting time are decreased being that calls are made more efficiently and consequently the customer’s experience is valued and the latter is satisfied with the excellent customer service provided.

Happy and motivated agents make satisfied and loyal customers, making both real brands’ advocates.

How can we make the agent’s experience a success?

Most agents feel discouraged with the plurality of platforms they have to access to give a correct and concise answer to the customer. Most of times, they have absolutely no information on the customer giving the impression that they are incompetent and boosting the customer’s grumpiness.

The GoContact platform has Inbound features that allow an intelligent management of contacts received. Regarding outbound calls, powerful campaigns can be created and features can be leveraged such as Predictive or Power Dialler to improve the contact performance. To guide your agents during calls, we also have a script building tool specifically developed to answer the smart scripting needs in a quick and efficient manner.

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The Contact Center of the Future, Mr. Jonh’s Experience

One the major trends for the future of customer service will be to create real time value from the information available on customers’ behaviour contextualizing the agents with the formers’ real needs. This will be the huge point of differentiation and a real source of competitive advantage, as customers will feel like they are an integrating part of the brand and have a much closer relation with the brand, and not two very different things.

For Contact Centers only one thing matters: how can we know everything that is relevant about the customer who is calling us right then in less than 10 seconds?

The Customer at the Core of Service

Currently, we are entering a universe where we want to achieve a 360 degree vision of the customer which must be provided to the agents immediately. To do so, Contact Centers must gather as much information about the Customer through different sources making it much easier to meet his/her needs and expectations.

Relevant and Contextualized Information

To answer this challenge, we need to reinvent the way information about the customer history is provided to the agents and the answer is an intelligent algorithm that uses the current and prior information available taking into consideration the type of service provided supplying the agent with a compact summary which quickly tells him/her everything he/she needs to know about the customer whose call he/she will be taking.

Contact Centers are information hubs which increasingly try to concentrate as much privileged information as possible. But, too do so, the only way the information can be transformed and used to offer a unique customer service is through the right technology.

The basis for a unique and efficient customer service is to present a connection with the customer through a confident voice, anticipating the resolution needs and expectations and avoiding the situation from becoming a problem.

Once upon a time…

Sarah is an agent from FunnyFlowers.com Contact Center and she loves her job. She is constantly motivated to deal with the countless calls she answers every day and through which she helps customers choosing flowers, writing personalized cards and providing information about delivery times, delivery costs, among many other tasks.

Thanks to the excellent services provided, customers are fully loyal to the brand, but it is becoming harder for Sarah to follow-up all the customers’ orders, as FunnyFlowers.com accepts orders by email, telephone, social networks and its website.

Sometimes her motivation becomes frustration when a customer asks for the status of his/her order and she cannot solve the situation because she does not have the information she needs. This situation is becoming more complex as Funnyflowers.com is expanding and it is increasingly more difficult to follow-up all the information about the customer.

Nevertheless, FunnyFlowers.com has decided to implement the GoContact software and the implementation process was pretty fast, involving many information integrations and migrations but, after the successful installation, the Contact Center will improve greatly.

Sarah is quite enthusiastic about this new platform and is ready to receive the first call of the day. The phone rings and while this is happening the agent’s screen transforms itself and shows the new GoContact plug-in, indicating that there is an incoming call from Mr. John in the Inbound phone service queue. The display shows Sarah a screen with all the information available on the client:

Mr. John is calling. Usually he calls about two times per month. He called last week and placed an order which is already closed. Yesterday, he also sent an email asking if we make deliveries to France and this ticket is still opened at this moment so he might be calling because of that. Note that he also visited our site a few minutes ago and that he added this item to his shopping cart, but he hasn’t checked out.

Sarah couldn’t believe the amount of real time information she had just received about the call she was going to take. As she was reading, she felt she knew the customer’s needs pretty well and that she could greet him saying “Good afternoon Mr. John, are you calling us about your doubts regarding the deliveries to France or about the online purchase you were trying to do right now?”

This new resource was surprising and efficient. Instantaneously, Sarah opened the hyperlinks included in the text with information about deliveries to France. What happened next was the most satisfactory customer service of all times being that Sarah answered all Mr. John’s questions.

And they lived Happily Ever After

The Contact Center platforms supply a humanized history of customers taking advantage of all the information needed in real time to create an intelligent analysis that will show a general and efficient vision of the Customer history. This information must be provided to the agent’s screen in an easy, intuitive and accessible manner so that he/she can quickly read and reproduce the information in less than 10 seconds.

The GoContact platform transforms the information into an actionable resource supplying solid information and supplementing the agent’s reasoning process. The way the platform helps its customers is, firstly, by boosting its agents’ work; i.e. sharing the power of gross processing that agents need to obtain the first seconds of a call through real time access to all the data, contextualizing them and delivering the content to the agent’s work area in a natural manner so that he/she fully knows the customer with whom he/she will be communicating with.

This is the path to follow so that customers become loyal to the brands as they feel that there is a genuine concern with knowing and solving their issues. It is what makes a fully efficient customer service experience.

Find out how we are transforming Mr. José’s customer service experience into a reality. Click here to know how Worten is creating Omnichannel customer service experiences with ManpowerGroup Solutions and GoContact.

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Customer Service Trends for the Healthcare Industry

Day-to- day in healthcare corporations is very peculiar. The humanization of contact with customers and the ability to customize and adapt interactions to each customer and case are key factors for a unique customer experience and a differentiating, quality service. Due to the individuality and subtlety of interactions as personal as those regarding health and wellness, the availability of customer services is another key factor to ensuring that all costumers are assisted, by whichever channel.

This article explores some of the revolutionising trends in the healthcare industry, in the customer service field.

Bespoke and Proximity Service

Healthcare service users are increasingly requesting a proximity, customised service. This is why Contact Centres in this sector and agents answering calls being provided with user information context and communication history in due time is key.

User information integration between hospitals and/or clinics and pharmacies will be a more and more important factor in ensuring customised and proximity service. A consult or medicine must not be seen individually but integrated in a way that will allow treatment customisation for each person, according to their needs.

Task Management Optimization

The healthcare industry is characterized by constant back office tasks like confirmations, cancellations, sending of SMS, adjustments in doctor and user schedules, among others. These activities open the door to management integration via a single Contact Centre platform, with embedded CRM, thereby promoting improved management efficiency.

Sustained Innovation and Scalability

Healthcare service users are usually susceptible to changes in service. A poorly prepared change can therefore give rise to terrible consequences. This way, supporting organization development by using technologies that enable scalability and the identification of new trends in business activity data, whether they are historical data or real-time data, is crucial.

One Organization, One Platform

The need to provide a proximity service shows the actual shortcomings of typical call and task management tools. The possibility of consulting Hospital Units or Clinics, in real time, while keeping the customer in line, thereby giving a quick answer to a medical question made by the customer, are consequences of the technological agility that ensures a more personalized, intimate service experience. And technology and society evolution are making this agility in customer service a crucial aspect for healthcare organizations.

Omnichannel Experience

Omnichannel services are a reality in several activity sectors and the healthcare industry is no exception. Task handling integration is only possible with the merger of service channels, regardless of the type of task and channel used by customers. This way, it is possible to provide the customer with an organization experience as a whole. When an organization allows customers to use the channel that most suits them, it is essential that they are systematically provided with the same experience, irrespective of the selected channel.

Real-Time Analytics and Response Ability

The implementation of new data analysis technologies, like Big Data, will enable process automation and ensure a swifter response to the new user preference trends. Such analysis processes and their conjugation with new technologies and systems, like mobile apps, will allow users to obtain a more customised experience and quicker access to information in a sector where reply, convenience and control are so important.

Has your Contact Centre already embraced these trends?

Personalisation and humanisation of contact with customers is essential to ensure a unique service experience in the healthcare industry, and this can only be accomplished by using a single, optimised Multi-Channel Contact Centre platform and a customer service team with the most qualified employees. Emotional and human management is also a key factor in providing premium services, as it focuses on people who are providing customer services and the right technology to boost their abilities.

Learn more about our solutions for the healthcare sector. Click here to learn more about how José de Mello Saúde is creating multi-channel service experiences for its customers in collaboration with GoContact.

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GDPR: 8 Measures to Ensure the Compliance of your Contact Center

The GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) is coming. This European regulation on privacy and data protection takes effect on May 25, 2018 and supersedes the current data protection directives and legislation.

The purpose of the GDPR is to strengthen the privacy and data protection of European citizens by giving them more control over their personal data, protection against data loss, and unifying data privacy regulations across Europe. But it does not only affect European companies. Any company working with data from customers, employees, vendors or European partners, is liable in terms of this regulation. In case of non-compliance, fines can go up to 20 million euros or 4% of the company’s turnover.

For Customer Service companies, in particular, the GDPR seems threatening. All personal information, regardless of where it is used, must be protected and this protection must be proven and verified. It shall be guaranteed to citizens the right to access their data, and the right to rectification, elimination or limitation of its processing. These requirements have a direct link to customer satisfaction and corporate reputation. They can generate a significant increase in the number of interactions, overloading the Contact Center and the departments involved in these processes.

The question then arises as how to counteract compliance with the GDPR, with the overall corporate objectives for customer service and management. Fortunately, compliance with the GDPR is ongoing and the GoContact platform is ensuring it.

Focus on Essential Information

As technology evolves from face-to-face relationships in a store to more digital relationships, it is important to determine the right moments in the customer journey to ask for his data. Confidence sets in with time. Structuring the questions and asking customers at the right time is important to get the necessary data and permissions from them. Questioning their preferences is essential to maintain these permissions and increase responsiveness to information. Resist the temptation to try to get as much data as possible in an initial interaction.

Build Information Access Profiles

The GDPR also requires companies to use as minimum data as needed to successfully complete a given task. This has implications for the amount of data that must be collected, and the availability of data within the organization. In a Contact Center, if an Outbound sales team only needs to access the customer’s phone number, and does not need his address, for example, then this information should not be visible. If an Inbound support team needs the address to schedule interventions at the customer’s home, for example, then this information may be visible.

In order to respond to this GDPR requirement, it is essential for the Contact Center platform to allow the creation and configuration of data access and customer information profiles. These profiles must then be carefully assigned, to ensure that the agents and the rest of the Contact Center team only has access to the data they actually need.

Facilitate Data Management in the Platform

The Contact Center platform must be prepared to allow users to easily, quickly and effortlessly correct, eliminate, or change customer data usage preferences without any complication or security concern.

Educate Your Team

Ensuring that your company complies with the GDPR starts with a team that understands this regulation, its fundamental concepts, and is trained to know how to act accordingly. Most likely, these will be the agents job, to clarify to customers what data is stored, why, and what your company does to it. Train your team to deal with these issues unambiguously.

Store everything in One Place

In the area of ​​Contact Centers and Customer Service, the evolution of technology in recent years has been exponential. The use of this type of technology separately, in different systems, with different management processes, represents a potential risk of nonconformity. Likewise, growth with this type of infrastructure represents an even greater risk, where data is stored in a distributed way rather than a centralized way. Only by centralizing everything in a single system and platform will it be possible to audit and ensure compliance with the GDPR on an ongoing basis. For customers, their data must be available in a concise, transparent and easily accessible way, with clear and simple language. To achieve this, it is important to have a Contact Center platform that ensures compliance with the regulation.

Security and Data Encryption

The importance of data security against possible attacks and unlawful access is not a new issue. However, the GDPR provides new guidelines to address these security breaches. It is essential to ensure that customer data is encrypted, as well as the communication between the browser and the server, and that its visibility to the company’s employees is controlled. Minimizing data and rigorously examining the Contact Center platform will reduce the likelihood of data exposure in a security breach. If there is a breach of customer personal data, the GDPR says that the regulatory authority has to be notified within 72 hours.

Create a Team Dedicated to Data Management

Establishing a team dedicated to data management and communication with customers becomes a requirement with the GDPR. This team should have a view of all communications with customers and define internal strategies to address these communications. This can only be achieved by combining technology, and information obtained through the Contact Center platform, and the supervision of this dedicated team. This approach reduces the GDPR major source of risk, customers’ complaints.

Anticipating Consumer Trends

Use the features of your Contact Center platform to anticipate consumer trends and preferences in the area of ​​data usage. Review customer responsiveness to your campaigns by monitoring negative events, such as the number of unopened emails, that can lead customers to revoke their consent or unsubscribe from a list. Proactive management of customer data is essential to ensure that customers have the best possible experience.

Is your Contact Center Ready?

When the 25th of May arrives, companies with customers in Europe must be prepared for the arrival of the GDPR. By examining the issue of protection beyond this regulation, companies can take advantage of the systems they use, such as the GoContact platform, to improve the relationship with their customers. At GoContact, we have a dedicated consulting team to help companies enforce and configure their Contact Centers with the GDPR in mind.

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Improve the Digital Customer Service Experience with Web Chat

When customers are faced with a problem, aside of finding a solution, they want to feel that the agents on the other side understand and identify themselves with the situation. Even when customers have some difficulties in describing what’s happening, they need to feel that they are understood.

A web chat and co-browsing solution can improve this dynamic, especially in a digital environment, expanding chat interactions (text and video) with screen sharing in real time. The goal is simple: to improve the way agents and customers communicate.

The Next Level of Online Customer Service

Let’s imagine that you sell softer and comfortable pillows than other companies in the market. To expand the business, you decide to create an online store to make available the various ranges of pillows that you sell.

John, a long-time customer, decides to try the new website. However, he has a doubt about a pillow or is unable to complete the purchase process. A fully personalized chat window appears on the screen, reflecting the brand´s image, asking if he needs help and John accepts it. Immediately, John begins an interaction with an agent, Isabel, who has direct access to John’s data, previous interactions, website navigation history and the time spent on each page.

Isabel and John talk for a while so that Isabel may fully understand the situation and how she can help. To ease the interaction, Isabel uses some brand pre-defined text templates to send messages.

Better Communication with Screen Sharing

In this case, Isabel asks John if he can share his screen so that she will be able to clearly identify the problem. Now, they can start a co-browsing session. From the start, this session allows the creation of a greater empathy between the agent and the customer.

As Isabel helps John to complete the purchase, she asks him to enter his credit card information. Isabel informs John that the fields are masked, so that she is not able to visualize this sensitive information. With this additional security, John feels more confident while filling out this information and completes the purchase.

Much more than a Web Chat Window

GoContact’s platform is not limited to the Web Chat channel. We developed an integrated solution, Omnichannel, designed to offer a unified customer service experience. This way, John manages to clarify his questions and obtains a unified experience regardless of the channel he has chosen.

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