70% of consumers believe empathy is vital in a customer service interaction and yet 39% feel their emotional state is not well understood by brands in those interactions.

During the pandemic we saw a rapid move to agents working at home and a steep rise in consumers using digital technology to interact. But what happened was done out of necessity and at speed. Now organizations need to make a very different contact centre work for both employees and customers in the longer term.
Consumers want the speed and convenience of digital, but sometimes they also want the empathetic engagement of a human being. 39% of dissatisfied customers say they can’t do everything they want through digital channels, and 20% want to mix online chat with a human into their digital interactions.ii
Customers today are less forgiving of poor service. Agents having to deal with frustrated customers are having to do so alone at home without the face-to-face support of colleagues and managers. This is leading to agent turnover rates of 60% a yeariii, which in turn is impacting customer experience.

Delivering empathy requires a combination of intelligent multichannel technology and human skills.
There is a way of putting human empathy back into digital contact centres – by setting up processes and systems that enable agents to have positive interactions with customers cost effectively at scale while maintaining regulatory compliance. A way of delivering differentiating customer experiences while also creating a fulfilling working experience for contact centre employees.

BT and Genesys are helping companies across several contact-intensive sectors to deliver empathy in the contact centre.

Genesys

Every year, Genesys® orchestrates more than 70 billion remarkable customer experiences for organizations in more than 100 countries. Through the power of our cloud, digital and AI technologies, organizations can realize Experience as a Service℠, our vision for empathetic customer experiences at scale. With Genesys, organizations have the power to deliver proactive, predictive, and hyper personalized experiences to deepen their customer connection across every marketing, sales, and service moment on any channel, while also improving employee productivity and engagement. By transforming back-office technology to a modern revenue velocity engine Genesys enables true intimacy at scale to foster customer trust and loyalty.

Find out more www.genesys.com

BT

We’re one of the world’s leading communications services companies. At BT, the solutions we sell are integral to modern life. Our purpose is as simple as it is ambitious: we connect for good.

There are no limits to what people can do when they connect. And as technology changes our world, connections are becoming even more important to everyday life.
Today, that’s truer than ever. The connections we make are helping solve the world’s biggest challenges such as the global pandemic, climate change and cyber security. Through the power of technology, we’re supporting customers to live, work and play together better.

Find out more www.bt.com