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Creating a Contact Center Customers LOVE


NOTE: THIS POST WAS ORIGINALLY WRITTEN AND PUBLISHED BY CHARLIE NEWARK-FRENCH AND OUR PARTNERS AT SHARPEN CX.

IT HAS BEEN MODIFIED TO REPRESENT CELERIT'S PERSPECTIVE.


Why republish Sharpen's blog post?

Well...


In 2023, Sharpen merged three best-in-class contact center software companies—SharpenCX, Webtext, and PlumVoice—into a unified organization with a series of points of differentiation.


The result? A powerful offering positioned to reshape the Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) industry and positively impact the customer experience moments that matter most: 

  • AI-powered self-service, 

  • intelligent interaction routing, 

  • robust and flexible communication across voice and digital channels, 

  • and a unified agent experience that unlocks agent potential.  



Contact centers people love

Is it possible, we asked ourselves, to create contact centers that people love? Can we transform experiences that are notoriously difficult and painful and make them not only tolerable but enjoyable? 


The short answer: Yes. 


But there’s work to be done because most contact center experiences… well… aren't exactly great. In fact, customer satisfaction ratings in 2022 were at their lowest levels since 2005.  But, Sharpen's team seems to be on track to flip the script on a 17-year run at lousy customer experiences generated by "improvements" in contact centers. In fact, their mission is focused on helping organizations deliver joyful experiences and deepening connections to consumers.


How are they doing that? 


With a contact center platform engineered to sharpen every connection that’s:

  • Performance-oriented (RAPID ROI)

  • Designed to empower (DRIVES EFFICIENCY)

  • Innovative by nature (GROWS WITH YOUR NEEDS)

Performance-oriented

Ultimately, every decision around a contact center has to link back to better outcomes. If you remove mundane tasks from agents’ workloads—via self-service—and give them powerful tools, you can drive better customer experiences, driving up revenue. Celerit's long-held belief is that the contact center will be a primary source of massive market share changes for businesses over the next few years, and companies that get it right will be massively favored!


Sharpen engages customers where they are to drive better outcomes: better outcomes for consumers, for agents, and ultimately, for businesses. On the P&L, those outcomes have the appearance of lowering costs and increasing revenue. But, they also take the form of stronger, happier, and more impactful connections between the business and its customers. 


What does this look like? 


Simpler and faster customer operations with contact center tools managed with clicks, not code—giving you the agility to modernize, transform, anticipate your customers’ needs, and stay ahead of the competition by providing the newest agent access to expert responses and resources. It's all about information. 


Performance orientation also means understanding and owning your outcomes with real-time performance insights up and down the organization. Sharpen has made it easy to track, and improve the metrics that matter most, driving costs down and ROI up.


Designed to empower

Celerit also believes contact center agents have untapped potential that, when unleashed, fuels positive, efficient human-to-human interactions. So, while most contact center platforms are designed with agents as an afterthought—cobbling together interfaces and requiring incessant toggling between systems—Sharpen puts the agent at the center.  That simplifies their workload so they can do more in less time. But magnifies their performance with tools designed to strengthen their customer satisfaction prowess.


Today’s consumers can access more data than ever! That fact actually creates higher expectations for brand interactions. However, few contact centers have truly answered the call to empower their customers in brand interactions. Specifically, few enable customers to engage agent-managed interactions are seamless. 


The Sharpen platform makes it easy for you to rise to the challenge. Meticulously designed and masterfully engineered, each facet works together to craft seamless, engaging end-to-end interactions.


What does that look like? 


For agents, it’s intuitive tools, process automation, real-time insights, and fingertip access to customer data, so they’re more engaged, productive, and valuable. For customers, it’s delivering effortless and secure experiences across every touchpoint—whether via AI-powered self-service, voice, or a plethora of digital channels. 


Innovative by nature

Innovation is key. One thing we all agree on in the contact center space is that technology is changing—and more rapidly than ever.  And, Sharpen has built their software to be “future-proof" through an adaptable platform designed to easily incorporate and embrace technological change.


The evidence for that? They're rolling out AI capabilities faster than their competitors. In 2023, they released 200+ versions of their software.


And, of course, they also merged three products into one. This would be simply impossible with a monolithic legacy tech stack.


What does this look like for your contact center?


The ability to flexibly migrate and modernize your IVR and contact center systems at your own pace—maximizing your existing investments and mitigating digital transformation risk. Contact center innovation also requires an extensible, open platform that makes integrating and adopting new technologies easy. 


And most importantly, the product of innovation should be intuitive and usable. The Sharpen platform fuels your contact center’s innovation using AI where it makes sense, solves a specific problem, and has an obvious and immediate impact. 


In closing...

Are we Sharpen fans?


Definitely.


But we unabashedly make the case for why. And we hope we can create Sharpen fans out of you as well. It's the smartest move any contact center could make when looking to create a contact center that customers love! The best part is that your organization will benefit from it, too.


Learn more about the Sharpen platform by attending one of our webinar experiences!




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