Contact Center Omnichannel Routing: The What & Why Explained

In today’s digital world, customer behavior is constantly evolving. As technology advances, so do customers’ expectations of service and support – they want to engage effortlessly with their favorite brands across multiple channels in real time. To meet these changing demands and satisfy customers, businesses are looking for ways to optimize how they provide customer service; one such way is contact center omnichannel routing. But what exactly is omnichannel routing?

In this blog post, we will explain the “what & why” of Omnichannel Routing and how providing a seamless omnichannel experience can drive better customer engagement while increasing efficiency and cost savings within your business operations.

Overview of Omnichannel Contact Center

An omnichannel contact center is an ideal solution to ensure that customer service and communication remain unified across all channels. This software provides each platform with up-to-date information quickly and efficiently to maximize productivity and improve customer satisfaction. Not only does this mean customers will always have access to the most accurate information, but it also simplifies the organization and planning of customer service employees.

Any changes made to one channel are automatically reflected in all other channels so that customers won’t need to be directed elsewhere when seeking different answers or services.

What is Omnichannel Routing?

Omnichannel routing is an incredibly useful method for customer support teams, allowing them to ensure that each customer receives the best possible service every time. It provides a smooth, uniform experience for customers across multiple channels like phone, email, WhatsApp, contact forms, and so on. As opposed to conventional customer interaction methods, omnichannel routing ensures that the customer’s query reaches the most appropriate and qualified agent skilled in handling such queries.

The details are all taken care of, agents are automatically assigned to tasks based on their skill set, and customers can contact a business through whichever platform is most convenient for them, knowing that it will be routed to the proper agent as soon as possible. This system increases efficiency while providing customers with a much more satisfactory experience.

How Omnichannel Routing Work

Omnichannel routing simplifies customer engagement across inbound and outbound voice calls, messaging, live chat, and more by using AI software to determine intent. Through the auto-distributor, the system dynamically selects the best-suited agent for wherever they are in their journey.

Thus, efficient service is provided to customers while administrators save time by having open slots directly filled by omnichannel routing. As a result of these virtual assistants, businesses can start and close engagements quickly via voice calls, text messages, or an app supporting customer loyalty and heightened customer experience.

5 Ways Omnichannel Routing Improves Customer Service

Omnichannel routing is an invaluable tool for contact centers, enhancing customer experience in several ways. Here are some of its benefits:

Increased Agent Productivity

Omnichannel routing has revolutionized how customer service agents handle customers. Allowing them to switch among various channels of communication quickly and at any time eliminates the need for switching manually among systems; this accelerates task execution time, therefore increasing agents’ productivity in contact centers.

Seamless Omnichannel Experiences

Omnichannel routing is critical in providing a quality customer experience because it significantly reduces the time wasted by customers repeating their problems or relaying the same information to multiple agents. As customers move from email, chat, and phone, they know their requests will be answered by the same knowledgeable agent, making for a hassle-free experience. Presenting the agent with relevant data immediately can help ensure the customer service interaction starts off on the right foot and provides an omnichannel approach that customers value highly.

Universal Queue

Omnichannel routing helps to remove the boundaries between communication channels effectively. Instead of assigning agents to individual channels, contact centers can now use a universal queue system that pools all incoming customer contacts in one place.

From this single queue, contacts can be distributed according to comprehensive rules, considering any real-time urgency and asynchronous aspects, such as social media and email inquiries. In this way, silos are removed, and contact centers are better equipped for high-performance levels.

Reduced Average Response Time

This contact center solution facilitates assigning customer service inquiries to agents with the required expertise. This not only improves the accuracy and speed of responses but also dramatically reduces average response time which leads to greater customer satisfaction and fewer abandoned queries, the goals all contact centers strive for.

Unified Agent Inbox

Omnichannel routing provides an efficient way to keep up with incoming contacts. Rather than searching in multiple inboxes, agents can now access all the queries from a single unified inbox. When an agent is assigned for a shift, all the queries addressed to their channels are accessible to the agent in this unified inbox. This allows multi-skilled agents to switch and attend to different contacts from different channels swiftly and efficiently, improving contact center productivity significantly.