Evolution of Customer Service & Experience for Contact Centers (Interview with Calin Muntean, VP of Service Delivery, TalentWorldGroup Plc.)

Customer Experience CX has been a hot topic for business leaders across various sectors. As our evolution into a digital world has brought with it unlimited information at our fingertips, the customer today has more choice and intel prior to making a purchasing decision and the cost for acquiring and keeping clients continues to rise. Brands as a result now have a laser focus on customers to make sure they are delivering optimal services, allocating the right budget and listening to all feedback.

Customer service and experience for contact centers have equally become integral. AI, machine learning and other technologies have not replaced live agents delivering front office customer support, but rather made for a more rich and personalized experience. Customers demand improved modes of communications and deeper levels of customization – contact centers must adapt quickly with front office support services in an omni channel approach, offering human customer service in tandem with cutting edge technologies.

We ask VP of Service Delivery, Calin Muntean of TalentWorldGroup, how CX has evolved and what the future holds for customer service in the contact center world.  

1. How Important is Customer Experience for TalentWorldGroup?

Let me just say that whenever we are taking on the customer service function for any of our clients, we are starting a journey to represent their brand with great responsibility. Customer experience is just a part of the full representation we are undertaking, as our team becomes responsible for entire processes that touch both the customer end, but also the internal organization of our client, where we step in with a lot of feedback to act upon the feedback received from their clients.

We are sharing our efforts to be a great partner to our:

a)    clients and offer the best customer experience by the professionalism, timeliness, flexibility and creativeness we can bring to the table

b)   our clients’ customers – where the experience needs to be second to none, to secure loyalty and brand adoration.

To sum up….. customer experience is of utmost importance to TWG.

2. Who Owns Customer Experience in the Company?

Everybody in a company should be aware that they are both sales-people and customer care representatives no matter what role they fulfill at a certain moment. The personal brand is translated into busines actions and decisions that touch the customers directly or indirectly. This is the personal responsibility level we have as a team trait.

On the other hand, of course we need drivers to channel and foster customer experience. This is a team effort around every project we take on. There is a Key Account Manager, a Service Delivery leader, an HR manager and a Business Support manager that usually team up to provide the best customer care experience to clients whereas, the Service delivery team, lead by its managers are driving this for our clients’ customers.

3. Is There a Difference Between Customer Service and Customer Experience? If so, What are the Differences?

Rather than enumerating the classical differences between what and how you do to service customers, I would point out the need to combine speed of answer, functionality, ease of access, simple processes and one-stop-shop procedures, so customers turn to love the company/brand we service due the satisfaction we can generate. We love to impress and walk all extra miles we have at hand.

It all comes down to value the time of the customer and find the right solutions for them in the nicest way possible.

4. How is Customer Experience Tracked Within the Organization?

Every project we take on has its specific and we are working directly with the clients to understand the set of data they would like to capture on their customer touch points. Handling big data is not a problem for us at all, as we believe there is a lot to learn from interpreting the numbers.

We all need to be aware that customer experience comes from two sides. The first one by interpreting the feedback you receive from customers through the omni-channel services we provide whereas the second side needs to come from what the customers are not telling you. The silent customers leaving a brand are the most undervalued resource untapped by most of the companies. For the customer experience process to be complete, we are aiming at finding ways, together with our customers, of course, to capture the full feedback loop. No wonder they say that a complaint is a gift, right?

5. How has CX Changed Within the Contact Center World?

Customer experience is always changing form and function within the CC world and this is both due to changing customer needs and pace of life, but also due to technology and the way it impacts our daily life.

Funny enough, what we see happening with big brands on the market is that they are introducing technology as a tool to create efficiency of service, but they fail on catering for the heart and soul of Customer Experience – the Human!

Catering for the human emotion is the number one focus every CC should have, followed by efficiency tools. Will technological enhancements will push real CX to become a premium service? …. The debate continues.

6. Has the Current Pandemic Shifted How TWG Manages CX and CS? If so How?

A big NO on this question as our operations model is fully cloud-based and was not impacted by the new reality at all. We have the same care and passion for the clients and their customer no matter what reality we are facing and would be wrong to have different standards due to specific conditions. That would mean that under normal conditions we wouldn’t be as compassionate and caring as in the special pandemic we are currently experiencing. Consistent care is an unquestionable TWG value.

7.    Can You Name 5 Benefits of Outsourcing Customer Service Operations for Brands?

·     Ability to focus on the core products or services, leaving customer care to professionals.

·     Being able to reach global customers with native speakers, culturally aware of the client specifics.

·     Single point of contact for the whole operation, regardless of the territorial span or time zone differences.

·     Unified and standardized reporting, regardless of the country of operation

·     Big data analysis to support business growth and adaptability to market trends