Five actions to future-proof remote working
Business and IT leaders looking to embed remote working and the digital workplace into business strategy face a number of technology and human challenges. Our conversations with leaders who are tackling these challenges revealed five key actions for effective change:
Unify communications
Unified communications technology proved its worth during the initial emergency response to the pandemic. It enables collaboration, adjustment to new ways of working and new ways of serving customers. According to McKinsey, 85% of business executives say their deployment of digitisation and automation has accelerated since the pandemic began and 86% have implemented new channels of communication4.
Tim Marsden, Senior Director, Technology Partner Ecosystem at Zendesk, says: “Thinking more about the customer service of the future has been a huge benefit of remote working. Companies are being forced to think about how they can support customers where they are, and on the channels that they operate on, enabling things like WhatsApp, and Instagram messaging into customer support.”
He adds, “Covid has been a real test of our support systems, having to spin remote teams and to pull in additional people to support all the online volume. It has really shown whether or not your customer support tools are user friendly. We have seen a huge growth in the business because a lot of companies were making do with more traditional older customer support tools, but because they had to move to remote and user friendly tools, that transformation to new cloud-based tools was accelerated.”
Tim Marsden,
Senior Director, Technology Partner Ecosystem | Zendesk
Omnichannel and unified comms is absolutely the future. And it’s been accelerated because of Covid. Choosing the right platform and the right tools to keep the conversation going, whatever channel the customer’s on, has become more important than ever.
Action Points
- Find out what communication channels customers prefer. Take a look at our research on the changing behaviours and needs of today’s customer and contact centre agents.
- Prioritise creating a unified experience, for both customers and customer-facing staff.
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