Top performing companies in just about every category have always had a customer-first mentality. In the past, while the contact center might have taken the lead from an operational perspective, successful companies would make it clear to employees that “customer service is everyone’s job!”

Except that it really wasn’t.

Outside of training employees to develop a customer-first mindset, a company’s ability for all employees to truly support their customers in a holistic, consistent way throughout their journey was limited by the tools available.

Today, customer experience takes into account every interaction that a customer has with your organization. Ownership of the customer is not limited to one or two departments, and the quality of their experience is not just measured through call recording and surveys.

Increasingly, non-contact center employees are being called upon to assist customers regardless of their working location. The benefits of this approach are clear: faster issue resolution, improved customer satisfaction and retention, increased revenue, and positive brand perception, to name a few. But for many companies, the same old communication and technology silos still prevent them from achieving success.

What is an “informal” contact center?

Simply put, an informal contact center is a group or team that doesn’t log into a traditional contact center application to manage interactions using formal routing. But that doesn’t mean that they aren’t closely connected to the voice of the customer and tasked (even measured!) with customer support and issue resolution. Let’s look at a few examples.

IT helpdesk: In this example, the customer is more than likely internal; it’s an employee calling, messaging, or opening a ticket to ask for assistance with an issue. While helpdesk employees usually don’t interact directly with external customers, they are critical to the company’s overall performance. Availability and responsiveness are key as they work to ensure that their internal customers (i.e., end users) are set up correctly and that their applications and voice and data networks are secure and running smoothly. Additionally, you can record videos beforehand, ensuring the best recording format OBS to deliver effective support. With 8x8, IT Helpdesk employees can handle the interaction using the same platform as their users. And when they have closed the ticket, 8x8 Survey can be used to rate the level of support provided.

Government: Businesses and retail experienced rapid change in 2020. But lesser-known to many was COVID-19’s impact on the public sector. While the need for critical services remained, in-person support was significantly reduced or eliminated. At the same time, ever-changing conditions and regulations resulted in dramatic spikes in call volume. Entire divisions were transformed into informal contact centers overnight. By enabling a hybrid approach to in-office and remote working, public service departments were able to support their citizens. Read how 8x8 helped Liverpool Council to build a seamless journey for their residents.

Inside sales: Supporting inside sales teams requires a strong solution to help meet both individual and company objectives. Often, these representatives are in the position of qualifying leads. Using 8x8 Work, they can consult with other team members, supervisors, and experts to quickly qualify potential opportunities and hand them off seamlessly to their colleagues. Using 8x8 Quality Management and Speech Analytics, successful interactions can be identified and used for coaching to improve performance. A broad array of integrations, including CRM and chat solutions such as Slack and Microsoft Teams, make it easy for teams to use existing solutions and tools.

HR, payroll, and training teams: Employees are considered a company’s most valuable resource. Approaching employee support with the same thoughtfulness as customer support goes a long way in keeping employees happy and engaged. This is why companies should track the Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) to improve the satisfaction levels whenever needed. Businesses can provide quick responses to employee benefit and payroll questions using the intelligent search capabilities offered by 8x8 Knowledge Base. And with 8x8 Video Meetings, employees around the globe (up to 500 people!) can share in high-definition video training sessions with chat and file-sharing capabilities.

Close the gap between employee experience and customer experience

The above examples demonstrate how the lines between “formal” and “informal” contact center are blurring. With 8x8’s unified, eXperience Communications Platform, employees can communicate, collaborate, and access the tools they need to support customers and drive measurable results. Because today, “customer experience is everyone’s job,” and with 8x8, your employees can get the job done.