CustomerServ’s Retail Industry Call Center Vendors Deliver Omnichannel Customer Engagement
Declining sales among brick-and-mortar stores have had many lamenting the death of traditional retail. In fact, the retail sector has been undergoing a dramatic transformation driven by consumers’ evolving needs and expectations, along with the expansion of digital channels.
Always connected, tech-savvy consumers are reshaping the retail experience to fit their lifestyle preferences. It’s no longer just a matter of in-store vs. online shopping. Consumers expect to interact with brands via multiple channels, whether they start on mobile, visit a physical store or call. Retailers are finding that consumers who utilize multiple channels are a more lucrative segment.
Not surprisingly, many retailers are seeking ways to bridge the digital and physical shopping experience. Some are adopting “bricks-and-clicks” models that integrate physical sites with online shopping by allowing consumers to order online and pick up in-store. Others are creating immersive experiences integrating in-store shopping with hospitality, education and entertainment (aka retailtainment).
To drive loyalty and recurring revenue, more brands are adopting membership- and subscription-based models. Memberships allow retailers to increase customer retention through tailored products and services, curated product selections and unique perks that add value for customers, such as Amazon Prime’s free expedited delivery, exclusive discounts, streaming video, cloud storage and many others.
Top Customer Service Challenges for Retail
Customer experience is critical to differentiate a brand in the challenging retail market. As consumer preference for an omnichannel experience continues to grow, retailers will need to provide superior customer service via phone, chat, video and social media, in addition to the traditional in-store experience. Top customer service challenges for the retail industry include:
- Omnichannel experience across digital channels: whether customers start their experience on one channel and shift to another, they expect brands to know who they are, where they’ve been and what they’re calling about in real-time.
- Effective seasonal workforce management: ramping up staff to handle holiday and seasonal peak volume times is a big challenge for retailers across all customer engagement channels.
- Staying up to date on emerging technologies: companies are raising the bar on shopping convenience with voice-activated shopping, video kiosks and the use of augmented reality (AR) to allow consumers to preview products in different surroundings. Retailers will need to ensure that they have the support staff in place to assist and educate consumers on the use of apps and new technology.
- Providing a “wow” experience across channels: leading retail brands are raising the bar for service excellence that customers have come to expect. Expectations for a unique and outstanding experience will only increase as retailers evolve their business models for immersive in-store experiences, personalized service and memberships.
- Brand advocacy: retail call center agents must be the retailer’s best brand ambassadors, even if the call type is simple and transactional. Effective training and brand immersion are required of retail call centers that expect to deliver high customer satisfaction scores in concert with high quality sales performance
Retail Brands Engage CustomerServ’s Elite Call Center Vendors for Superior Service Delivery
CustomerServ’s hand-selected retail call center vendors provide dynamic staffing models that deliver sales, quality and a superior customer experience for leading store and non-store retail brands. Our vendors have mastered seasonal staffing models enabling our clients to go from steady state or zero agents up to hundreds of agents back down to steady state or zero, seamlessly. Our vendors’ creative retail staffing models include:
- Counter-cyclical clients which enable our vendors to pull from existing agent resources for retail ramp ups and re-assign the agents after ramp down
- Shared agent staffing for retailers with less complex and transactional call types, shorter training times
- Dedicate agent staffing for retailers with more complex call types and longer training times
- Semi-shared agent staffing allowing a team of shared agents to support dedicated agents for any spillover, overflow or dramatic spikes
- Blended agent staffing allowing a client approved combination of multiple staffing models
- Blended-shore agent staffing allowing retailers to use both on-shore and off/near-shore call center resources to reduce outsourcing costs
CustomerServ’s retail call center vendors provide the following services:
- Brick and mortar and work-at-home call center solutions
- On-demand and flexible staffing
- Seasonal staffing ramps and spikes
- Steady state staffing
- Customer service
- Inbound sales
- Outbound sales
- Membership and loyalty programs
- Live chat and email support
- SMS support
- Mobile app support
- Social media support
- Data entry and back office support
- Sales support
- Order processing
- Order fulfillment
- Billing and adjustments
- US Based, near-shore and off-shore support
- PCI compliant call centers
- Bi-lingual and multi-lingual call centers
- Site based and work-at-home agents
