Implementing Multi-Channel Context Persistence with Amazon Connect

Abstract

In today's omnidirectional and integrated customer service environment, contact centers find it rather challenging to maintain context persistence across different channels of communication, such as voice, chat, and email. The result is fragmented customer experiences wherein context is lost every time the customer switches to another channel, thus leading to frustration and lower satisfaction. It proposes an end-to-end solution using Amazon Connect integrated with Amazon Connect Customer Profiles, AWS Lambda, and Amazon Connect Contact Flows to provide a single viewpoint of the customer journey. The proposed architecture allows seamless handoffs between channels through Amazon Connect Customer Profiles, which provides a centralized and real-time repository of customer data aggregated from various sources. It creates a seamless context for the customer journey and gives agents a 360-degree view of customer interactions so agents are more efficient, average handle times are lower and overall customer satisfaction is higher.

Background Information

Evolution in customer service has transformed from a single-channel support model to a sophisticated omnichannel approach whereby customers interface with businesses via various channels such as voice, chat, e-mail, and social media. Omnichannel customer engagement is all about a single strategy that makes it possible to navigate easily through these channels with seamless transitions and connected conversations for cohesive experiences, irrespective of customer choice for interaction. Yet, context persistence-the ability to retain and pass along customer context, history, and preferences-across channels-continues to be one of the most important challenges facing contact centers today.

When customers have to switch between agents or channels without their context being preserved, they are often required to repeat themselves, which causes frustration and results in a service experience that is broken. This situation has been identified as one of "lost context" and can harm performance related to key metrics such as lowering customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores and increasing average handle time (AHT) while decreasing the first contact resolution (FCR)rate. Research shows that 76% of customers expect consistent interactions across departments (Salesforce, 2022), and 33% find the need to repeat themselves as one of the most frustrating aspects of poor customer service experiences (HubSpot Research, 2021).

Solution Overview

Amazon Connect is a cloud-based, omnichannel contact center solution that enables businesses to deliver consistent and seamless customer experiences across multiple communication channels such as voice, chat/SMS, tasks and email. It integrates natively with various AWS services, including Amazon Connect Customer Profiles and AWS Lambda, to offer real-time data processing, advanced contact flow management, and dynamic context sharing.

The proposed solution leverages Amazon Connect Customer Profiles to centrally store and update customer interaction data, enabling a unified view of the customer journey. AWS Lambda functions are used to capture, process, and retrieve real-time data, ensuring that context is preserved across channels. As a customer transitions from chat to voice, Amazon Connect Contact Flows transfer the stored context to the agent, who can view the complete interaction history within the Amazon Connect Agent Workspace.

This architecture ensures scalability, real-time updates, and secure data handling, supported by AWS services.

Key Components in the Diagram

• Amazon Connect: The central component for managing customer interactions through voice chat, SMS and task channels.
• Amazon Connect Customer Profiles: Acts as a repository to store and update customer context in real-time, ensuring a 360-degree view of all interactions.
• AWS Lambda: Handles and manages the customer context dynamically based on interactions, facilitating real-time data transformation and logic execution.
• Amazon Connect Agent Workspace: Displays the entire interaction history to agents, allowing them to deliver a personalized and context-aware customer experience.

Benefits and Business Impact

Implementing context persistence with Amazon Connect offers measurable benefits, significantly enhancing contact center efficiency and customer satisfaction. By providing agents with a unified view of customer interactions through Amazon Connect Customer Profiles, Average Handle Time (AHT) can be reduced as agents spend less time gathering information and more time solving issues effectively (AWS). This makes switching between channels smoother, gets rid of repeated questions, and means customers don't have to explain their issues again. As a result, Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) has gone up. Moreover, the availability of real-time context reduces the mental workload on agents, improving Agent Productivity through streamlined workflows and quicker resolution. These enhancements collectively contribute to a more personalized and efficient customer service experience.

References

1. Amazon Web Services
2. HubSpot Research (2021)
3. Salesforce (2022). Why Customer Engagement Will Never Be the Same, According To 15,600 of Them