Transform your customer interactions: From physical to 'phygital' to digital
Madeleine Kaiser
After analog doesn't immediately come digital, but "phygital". Phygital refers to the temporary state towards completely digitalized customer journeys. This combination of physical and digital elements in service delivery is a valuable intermediate step to avoid overwhelming either companies or customers.
The claim of "completely digital" should generally be taken with caution, because: Not every person speaks the same language of customer interaction. As diverse as learning types are – visual, auditory, motor, communicative – so are the preferences for which communication channel customers want to use to contact companies: personal conversation (face-to-face), video calls and telephone, self-service, messaging apps, social media, live chats, chatbots, voicebots, SMS, etc. The key to success lies in offering the appropriate contact channel for each customer inquiry.
The art is therefore to find out how valuable interactions are for your customers per channel. They may even desire predetermined breaking points on their service journey. At the same time, these considerations are also valuable for your company – especially if you are also guided by Bill Price and David Jaffe's principle "The Best Service is No Service": If you know the value of your interactions, you know which dialogues and processes you can automate, simplify or even eliminate. And where, on the other hand, it is worthwhile to intensify or exploit valuable contacts.
Swisscom Services AG – Your Partner on the Transformation Journey
This is where we, as a renowned contact center outsourcing company, come in and offer you our expertise in analyzing and evaluating customer interactions. Together with you, we identify digitalization opportunities, help you bridge the gap from analog to digital with our phygital offering, and create added value.
Graphic: Phygital – the gradual linking of physically sensual offline and digitally efficient online contact points
How we shape the phygital journey together with you
Our experience shows that a balance of these three aspects in particular has a positive effect on the further development of your Customer Interaction Center:
1. Understanding the customers
We believe that while good analysis software can help companies uncover weaknesses in the customer experience and identify dropouts, such software cannot capture the reasons and feelings of customers. That's why we ensure a better understanding of customers: We listen to your customers and put ourselves in their shoes. We want to understand what your customers go through from their first contact with your company to their last experience, and how your internal processes affect this chain of events.
2. Analyzing (or having analyzed) your own service organization
"Walk in your customers' and employees' shoes!" is our call to you and at the same time the driver for us to fulfill our promise "we care about your customers". With our professional, expert service review, we analyze the status quo and show you possible courses of action.
An example for illustration: Our external view of different contact center organizations shows that the demand for digital customer experiences has changed significantly and this requires a new perspective on the customer experience. Customers are now online around the clock and want to interact with companies through various channels, such as mobile apps. Many companies focus on mobile applications and are therefore increasingly relying on digital interaction – preferably in self-service mode. However, when faced with technical challenges, app users increasingly seek direct dialogue via smartphone and landline telephone. We support this possibility and offer app support. Also because we gain 'real' customer feedback first-hand and obtain valuable insights into the user experience (UX). This immediate, continuous customer feedback in turn flows directly into software optimization and product development, improving the service experience.
Excerpt from our phygital service offering: App Support
We help you build an engaged user community and provide you with first-level support for your web-based customer portal as well as for your mobile applications. Contact center agents from Swisscom Services AG answer inquiries from app users who need technical support for installation/setup as well as functionality/usage of the apps or have questions about understanding.
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3. Professionally operate services – in-house or via outsourcing
In order to offer your customers optimal experiences, it is worthwhile, as mentioned, to conduct a comprehensive analysis of your service organization and your touch points in the form of "Contact Center Consulting". The analysis phase is followed by implementation: Without high-quality services, i.e., professional customer interactions, long-term customer relationships are not guaranteed. We are an ideal partner for combining technical solutions or products with customer experience consulting services and first-class customer service.
'Phygital' for the time being – we advise you and operate your services in your name
Swisscom Services AG is firmly convinced that the imminent future is a combination of digital and physical experiences and therefore relies on the "phygital" approach. The digital transformation journey that most companies and many customers are currently on requires time and patience. We can offer you both with our "advise and operate" service, because we see it as follows: If the digital experience is good, it makes verbal customer feedback even better!
You can find further information about Contact Center Outsourcing with Swisscom Services AG, including contact options, here.