It’s a cliché for sure, but my career has gone full circle, starting out in this field 20 years ago I didn’t think I would return to a technology company. Just like the color of my hair, technology has dramatically changed over the years and so to has the demands of customers. Long gone are the days of buying point technology solutions, now assets have to be sweated to the maximum and business cases need to be robust and linked to measurable ROI.
What is exciting is that major change in our industry is happening right now, customers expect ‘always on’ service and engagement is becoming increasingly virtual. As stated in Cisco’s white paper (Provide the Best Customer Experience for Business Success) your contact centre strategy is in the hands of your customers, literally.
The way organisations are measuring the performance of their contact centres is changing to, moving away from the traditional costs to service models to measuring the customer experience and the impact this has on the lifetime value of the customer.
Improving the ‘brand experience’ and the quality and consistency of every interaction is a critical driver for growth.
This is not just amendments to the normal operational metrics, it requires a culture shift away from a pure cost focus to an approach that centers around the customer and their needs. This change in focus needs to be embraced by contact centre leaders and initiatives driven to empower every agent (who can act and deliver exceptional customer experiences).
This transformation journey will continue to evolve and customer insights, across all mediums is essential to analyse performance and act – the transformation we are seeing is most definitely a journey and not a destination.
So back to why I have joined Cisco, well coming from the client side of the fence, I often became frustrated with the lack of engagement and value offered by the technology partners we worked with, questioning their real value in truly supporting customer centric initiatives.
By joining Cisco I have the chance of being part of a team that is truly focused on changing that. The UK&I Contact Centre team is focused on building a practice that is capable of adding value and relevance to the customer experience and business outcome led strategies.
It is personally an exciting time, as I set out with the team looking to break the mould of a typical vendor engagement model. I am looking forward to working with our partners and clients, and building a successful blueprint engagement model, that can be replicated throughout EMEA and beyond.
Authors
1 Comments
Interesting and exciting times for sure Lee. I’m delighted to see that Cisco is making the investment in your skills and experience to support their contact centre strategies. We both know how critical and essential this support is, just hope you are ready huge demand on your time that should result from Cisco making you available to their customer base. Good luck Lee and I hope to hear more about how you get on in the coming months, keep the blogs coming.