To create lasting value in those "six minutes" with customers.

This article presents content originally published in "Design Mind," a design journal operated by frog, under the supervision of Mr. Noriaki Okada of Dentsu BX Creative Center.

The average time spent interacting with customers in contact centers is just 6 minutes. Efficiently organize staff, processes, and technology to make that time special.

<Table of Contents>
▼Contact Centers Hold the Opportunity to Deliver "Exceptional Customer Experiences"

▼What Ruins the Customer Experience?

▼Never Lose Sight of the Core Purpose and Role

▼Three Steps to Build a Customer Experience-Centric Contact Center

▼Now is the Time to Invest in Contact Center Transformation

Contact centers hold the opportunity to deliver "exceptional customer experiences"

Contact centers, which handle customer inquiries, are often overlooked. Yet within any organization, they are a critical element in the overall structure of service and customer experience. This vibrant room is where staff, processes, and technology come together to connect with customers one-on-one. Organizations spend billions on marketing activities to achieve this "one-on-one customer connection."

Traditionally, companies viewed contact centers through a short-term lens focused on cost and technology. However, this approach cannot generate long-term results. To achieve sustainable value, it is crucial to prioritize this opportunity to interact directly with customers and deliver service. The goal must be to create customer experiences that ultimately drive increased sales and bottom-line profitability.

Now is the time to move beyond a return-focused, cost-driven mindset and cultivate a human-relationship-first approach. Treating customers with care is fundamental, but it's not enough. We must deliver customer experiences that provide maximum overall value. The goal is to strike the right balance between optimal customer experience and optimal cost.

This goal can be achieved by earning customer trust and facilitating easier communication. In today's world where everyone competes for attention, customer experience is often the last differentiator companies can offer customers across many industries. It is wise for companies to transform customer touchpoints in contact centers, elevating them to what they should be: hubs for exceptional experiences.

Maximize overall value by always putting the customer at the center of interactions, bringing together staff, processes, and technology to deliver seamless service.

What ruins the customer experience?

For many customers, having to contact a company is a chore. After finally navigating a maze-like automated voice menu, they're asked to input their birthdate or postal code, only to have an operator ask the same questions seconds later.

Often, this is due to "slow systems," leading to endless, insincere apologies from the person on the other end. Trying to avoid this by using chat support might result in the conversation abruptly ending mid-conversation or discovering you need to call anyway... Customers get fed up, and it benefits no one.

Ironically, purely short-term, "bare minimum" cost optimization actually increases long-term costs. It's only natural that normally calm customers become visibly angry out of sheer frustration. That anger gets voiced on social media, transforming a private conversation between just the operator and the customer into a public outcry heard by millions. Or, they might simply switch to another company and advise their friends to avoid that company's services altogether.

This is no special experience—it's downright appalling. It starkly illustrates how points within customer service processes can lurk everywhere, capable of unleashing uncontrollable anger and potentially ruining the entire experience from start to finish.

In The Forrester Wave™: Customer Experience Strategy Consulting, Q4 2022, published by U.S. research firm Forrester, Capgemini, the parent company of the frog brand, was recognized as a "Leader" in customer experience strategy. ( Learn more here )

With its expertise in service design and deep knowledge of customer experience design, frog can collaborate with clients to deliver first-class contact center transformation solutions. Clients can be confident they are building services with the right capabilities aligned to their vision and goals.

Never lose sight of your original purpose and role.

The gap between average customer interactions and executive decision-making is significant. It's a well-known story that Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, during a meeting with 30 of the company's executives, called the Amazon contact center to verify a leader's claim that "Amazon answers every inquiry call within one minute." After four and a half minutes, Bezos reportedly flew into a rage.

While executive intervention can provide a powerful push for change, most board members would likely prefer a system where issues aren't reported to the board and action isn't demanded. The core purpose of a contact center is to create opportunities to build trust, deepen relationships, and delight customers by being there for them and making a positive impression. Yet in reality, centers are often overwhelmed by "backstage" tasks like process decisions, workforce reduction measures, and vendor negotiations, and executive attention tends to focus on these aspects. Amidst this, the center's fundamental purpose is easily forgotten.

Interactions with customers cannot be fixed after the fact. They must be designed wisely, based on sufficient information and data. Every single decision impacts the moment. Each interaction with a customer becomes a critical touchpoint for the entire brand striving to retain customers and optimize their experience. Just a few unpleasant incidents—even just one—can lead to unexpected revenue loss.

At frog, we view contact center interactions as opportunities for conversation. Yet in reality, these service opportunities are often riddled with inefficiency. So what measures should be taken?

Three Steps to Building a Customer Experience-Centric Contact Center

If solving customer problems and enhancing their experience is the top priority, companies must rethink their spending priorities and growth strategies, transforming contact centers into places customers actually enjoy. The contact center experience must be meticulously crafted and treated with care.

Companies must understand the root causes of points that disrupt customers and ruin their experience. Here, for organizations embarking on contact center transformation, we present three steps to advance contact center reform. Until now, cost considerations have been the top priority, and customer concerns have been neglected. From now on, maximizing overall value is the key to success.

1. Analyze the Composition of Service Opportunities
   First, envision the desired outcome. Decode the composition of individual service opportunities to understand what a typical interaction looks like. Examine this composition to identify the optimal approach that maximizes both efficiency and experiential value. Use this as a guide to determine the allocation of staff, processes, and technology. Seek opportunities to create truly meaningful moments.
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2. Maximizing "Total Value"
   Here, "overall value" refers to services that enhance both customer and employee experiences while maximizing the company's investment in its contact center. Every customer is important, but their expectations may vary by segment. Employees must feel valued and empowered to handle customers appropriately. Employee experience is closely linked to customer satisfaction.
   
   Evaluate the balance between upfront investment, cost per service unit and per employee, and customer satisfaction. Allocate limited resources so customer service achieves maximum impact.
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3. Building the Experience Hub
   At frog, we are redefining the contact center as an "experience hub." An experience hub is the core enterprise location that manages all service interactions and customer engagements across multiple channels. This experience hub enables large-scale, sustainable change, shifting the typically cyclical "contact center ROI curve" upward. To achieve this, it is necessary to examine each service interaction individually, prioritize the customer and employee experience, leverage technology, and build operationally consistent customer engagement opportunities.

Now is the time to invest in contact center transformation

For example, consider transforming your contact center into an experience hub, introducing capabilities that create lasting value across your entire organization and deliver exceptional experiences for everyone. frog supports our clients in achieving this.

Discerning customers have high expectations for service and demand exceptional customer experiences, making contact centers a critical focus in transformation strategies. In today's business environment, transforming into experience-driven capabilities powered by technology is key to maintaining return on investment.

&nbsp;At frog, we combine engineering and technology with world-class design thinking unmatched in the market to support our clients.&nbsp;

If you are considering service transformation, cost reduction, and revenue growth as part of your contact center transformation strategy, please reach out to frog. We have the proven track record. As your business partner in leveraging technology and driving transformation, frog delivers value across all domains throughout your entire project. For more details on our customer experience design services, download this report.

This article is also featured in the web magazine "AXIS".