“Most consumers have higher expectations for service than they actually receive,” said Rusty Jensen, Vice President of Revenue Generation at Nice inContact, a Sandy, Utah-based CCaaS vendor. “This has put a lot of pressure on vendors, from a strategic standpoint. Customers today are picking brands based on their customer experience, as opposed to product differentiation. So, brand loyalty and customer experience are more important than they have ever been.” Customer relationship management (CRM) software is an integral component of CCaaS and customer experience. “In these days of the customer experience, if you make it difficult for your customers to reach you, you’re going to get chewed up and spit out,” said Andy Dignan, Senior Vice President of Global Partners & Services at Five9. “You need to make sure you have all the functionalities in a single, seamless CCaaS environment that integrates to your CRM solution and other places where your customer data lives, to provide a seamless customer journey.” CRM software supports the institutional knowledge of customer issues and what has been done in the past to resolve them that customer service representatives rely on whenever they interact with consumers. Eliminating duplicative communications not only increases agents’ productivity, perhaps more importantly, it demonstrates that an organization cares for its customers, experts said. “It’s important to know what the customer is calling about, and it’s important to know if they’ve called twice before and have already spoken to multiple departments, said Valerie Espie Bourseau, Director of Solution Consulting and Customer Experience at 8x8, a provider of cloud-based contact center products based in Campbell, Calif. “This will help to soothe the customer who might not be in the best of moods and will also help the agent engage the customer’s concerns without having to ask a lot of repetitive questions. Knowing the customer journey is especially important these days because if a customer is upset with your company, they can use social media to convey that dissatisfaction to a lot of people.” Copyright © 2021 AVANT Communications, Inc. AVANT | CCaaS 6-12 Report | 10