itel Helps Companies Digitally Transform CX Capabilities

When it comes to customer experience, digital services aren’t just preferred. They are expected and they have become a business necessity.  

In 2017, 60% of U.S. customers reported a preference for digital, self-serve options. Fast forward to 2021, after a global pandemic forced even older generations to shop online, those numbers have risen to 69% of American consumers who now expect companies to translate their products and services into digital experiences.  

Gone are the days when people would patiently wait to speak with a customer service representative. Consumers now want instant 24/7 access to brands via chat, email, text, or social media. And generations raised on tech, like Gen Z buyers, will be looking for companies that digitally innovate. The key to remaining competitive is to align with a customer experience (CX) partner that places high importance on digital strategy, analytics, and new tools and technologies.  

That’s the idea behind itel’s Innovation Lab, where new, cutting-edge solutions will be developed to solve today’s unique customer experience challenges, and where companies can find a partner in innovation to help them accelerate their digital transformation.  

Decisions that are Data-Based  

Many companies implement technologies just for the sake of being cutting edge. But there’s no sense in implementing a chatbot that can’t answer common inquiries or offering a digital channel for customer segments that prefer voice calls. Decisions about where and when to go digital should always be backed by customer insight. And that comes from customer data.  

“Your data tells a story,” Leonardo Borges, itel’s Vice President of Data Science & Innovation, explains, “it tells you what’s happening with your operations, your calls, your efficiencies, and your areas of improvement. Data is also power. It allows you to understand the right path and guides you to the best solution. If you’re not looking into the data, you might not be making the best business decisions.”  

According to Borges, it’s vital to have a CX vendor that places high priority on data analytics. Trained data analysts can take a deep dive into a company's KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) and can pull not only a snapshot of a company’s customer service performance, but they can help brands to better understand customer expectations and to uncover the root causes of customer friction.  

“At the itel Innovation Lab, we have three hubs and one of them is dedicated to data science, with a whole team of data engineers, data scientists and analysts, who collect, verify, and interpret all the data, so companies get an exact picture of their customer experience operations. We’re also introducing dynamic, interactive client dashboards that show KPI performance, so clients can simply pick up their phone or laptop to see what’s happening with their operations in real-time.” 

This allows companies to better understand their customers and their preferences, and which digital options might enhance their overall customer journey.  

Yet, Borges recommends that analytics should evolve beyond descriptive, and should become diagnostic, predictive, and prescriptive. “It should provide speed to insight,” he adds, “and should go from painting a current picture to providing recommendations for future action. It should predict what’s going to happen next, so we can prescribe solutions that will tackle any operational challenges.” 

Seamless Automations 

Another common request at itel’s Innovation Lab is automation. Most organizations seek automation to increase efficiency, reduce costs, handle sudden influxes of call volumes, and deliver instant, seamless customer communications and transactions, without the need for a live agent.  

For example, automation programs can be coupled with AI (Artificial Intelligence) to carry out common, repetitive tasks that would normally fall to agents, such as answering simple customer inquiries using programmed chatbots, or creating a program that automatically processes smaller refund requests. 

“The whole idea is to increase efficiency by reducing repetitive tasks, transforming them into seamless automations that free up agents to deal with higher-value transactions and more complex customer issues,” says Borges. 

However, when surveyed, 52% of customers describe most service interactions as fragmented with inconsistent tools and processes used across marketing, sales and customer support teams. There simply isn’t any cohesiveness or consistency, leaving customers frustrated and confused when they must repeat information or go through unnecessary steps to get their questions answered.  

Therefore, it’s important to partner with a customer experience provider that takes the time to fully understand your brand, your operations, and your customers, so they can get a sense of your total user experience and build integrated platforms and automations that work seamlessly together, across departments and technologies. 

“Our Innovation Lab team works closely with brands to determine what processes can and should be automated,” explains Borges. “Then, we leverage the best, world-class programming talent to create in-house, customized solutions and automations that work seamlessly with a client’s operations and processes.” 

A Leading Innovation Lab   

Technology is always evolving, and brands will need to be at the forefront of digital innovation if they want to keep the interest of younger consumers and generations who are used to the convenience of digital services. 

This explains why 38% of business executives plan to invest more in technology in the coming years and why 40% of those will be investing in digital-first customer service innovations.  

itel’s Innovation Lab aims to be at the forefront of this digital revolution, ready to help clients with new technologies and ideas. Located in Medellin, Colombia, one of Latin America’s rising technology hubs, itel is leveraging local programming talent and its already world-class operations team to gain more market share for their clients.  

 “We can be a great help to organizations that want to enhance their customer experience or uncover new opportunities in their processes. Our team works closely with clients to meet any need, goal, or challenge. We will provide solutions and top-notch technologies that can help companies remain at the forefront of digital innovation,” says Borges, “and we can do this at a fast pace.”    

Innovation is at the center of itel’s culture and organization, and at their new Innovation Lab, each client can access its own dedicated team of data scientists and analysts, data engineers and robotic process automation, or robotics engineers. Supported by itel’s operations and experience team, they work hand in hand with clients to supply the capabilities that will serve their needs.  

Learn more about itel’s Digital Services and stay tuned for exciting new developments from our Innovation Lab.