With a few touches to a screen, we can order our groceries (or takeout, if you’d like), manage our money, pay our bills, learn a new language, watch a film, read the newspaper, and invest in our future with stocks and bonds. All of this, for maybe the first time in history, can be done without leaving the couch.
Though vaccines are widely available and the world is beginning its return to pre-pandemic activities, the digital shift that took place through 2020 and 2021 has revolutionized and rewired many of our interactions. The changes born out of the COVID-19 pandemic have created new standards of convenience, and the world at large isn’t letting that go so easily. Though any shifting landscape presents its own set of challenges, the new changes put forth can, with a few tweaks, revolutionize the way we work and bring companies like yours new opportunities for productivity. It begins with the people who work for you.
“Human capital” is essentially the value added to a company by the skills and productivity of its employees. New technology and remote working have changed, but not harmed, our ability to maximize this value. Let’s start with a big league example.
CIO.com recently covered some changes to Wells Fargo’s operations. The bank has shifted from person-to-person customer interfacing, moving typically in-person customer experiences to self-serve, remote options. This serves not only as an accommodation to the discomfort many still feel about entering public places, but also puts infrastructure in place that can support the organization and its employees through COVID’s fallout or, though we really hope not, another lockdown.
Your company can equip itself to make the most of remote work, too. Taking an employee-first approach and equipping your workforce with all that they need to be comfortable, productive, and capable is key to your success at this time. We’ve seen the benefits to this approach here at Amplix firsthand. I’m sure you’ve heard about our 360 Amplification — we extend this not only to our clients but to our employees, too.
Here are a few ways to take care of the humans behind the human capital and to get the most out of the new normal.
Digitize interactions and place an emphasis on online CS/CX
One of the key tenets of good Cx is to meet the customer where they want to engage. Some don’t want to sit on the phone, so make other options available, like live chats, email submission forms, immersive mobile experiences and AI-based systems.
When run correctly, these options can free up the actual people that work for you to do people work– not work that can be done or information that can be relayed by a machine.
But the phone will always be a primary channel (landline and mobile), and so architecting a seamless and painless experience is paramount. Contact Center as a Service platforms today encompass all of these options and empower you to design and implement a great customer experience and provide insightful reporting to allow for continual improvement.
Employ better Work From Home technologies within your company to ensure maximum capability and productivity for employees
Laying out better infrastructure for work from home scenarios — easier to use email systems, company-wide software licensing, and the latest and best applications for information sharing,collaboration, communication, security and more– is vital.
Companies with poor or complicated internal technology infrastructures can expect to see increased shadow IT activity. This below-board tech use can compromise your valuable information, and reduce the productivity of the people stuck fiddling with Zoom and Google apps. It also leads to dysfunction– duplicate licensing, difficulty completing and sharing work, and financial strain.
Aside from oversights related to user-implemented solutions, a negative technology experience hurts productivity and morale. Bad technology can reduce the value of an individual’s output with decreased capability, limited access to resources, and time wasted on waiting for support– time that could be spent utilizing better technology to produce valuable outcomes. Nobody works to their full potential when they’re experiencing frustration. A few updates can help keep the good experiences, and the good work, flowing.
Your technology infrastructure may be excellent already. But, it may also be dated. Given that companies are operating on a brand new, mostly remote playing field, things that may have worked before COVID-19 should be evaluated under the new circumstances. To put it simply, make sure your technology works for your workers.
Create an open and collaborative interdepartmental relationship
Collaboration is critical to innovation. Spontaneous interactions are often the catalyst for great ideas, problem solving, and critical thought. To make good on these sparks of creativity, open lines of communication are a must.
Cross-collaboration technologies are a must in order to ensure reliable and easy communications between departments and to create virtual spaces where these kinds of interactions can occur. There’s no more water cooler talk, no more happy hour, no more stopping into an office just to say hello. Accommodating this absence with teamworking technology can help foster interactions and ongoing communications, so we can pick back up where we left off face to face.
It’s a challenging time to be a CIO. The new normal is fast-paced– breakneck, even. It is digitally native, constantly exploding with new ideas and capabilities, and quickly running the old normal into obsoletion. As an individual, you are trying your best to keep up, to stay current, and to support your department and organization as a whole. Having to upheave your tried and true ways of operating can sound intimidating, even to the most seasoned expert. We understand, and you don’t have to navigate this alone.
Amplix will stand behind you and help you find, and employ, solutions that work toward an improved digital infrastructure. We’ll offer you the best options to make internal communications, which are so critical to the new normal, easier and more efficient.
You can leverage our expertise in Contact Center as a Service and infrastructure to find solutions that enhance your online customer service capabilities. Our years of combined experience and industry weight help us to implement new additions to your technology faster and more efficiently.
We know that no one can afford mistakes in the fast-paced and rapidly evolving working model. That’s why we’re dedicated to staying up to date and helping our clients adapt. That’s what 360 Amplification means to us — after we find your solutions, we rally for the best possible terms and contracts from providers and vendors, and we see your technology through its lifecycle to make sure that everything runs smoothly and efficiently for you.
Want to face this challenge together? Contact us today and let us stand behind you on this new journey. We’ll help you, and your employees, come out on top.
