How ’Digital First’ is Customer First

18/04/22 Wavenet
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Many of you have started on a company’s website and when in need of support been forced to call their Customer Support.


When making the call, you were probably greeted by an IVR asking you to press 1#, 2#, 3# depending on your issue. An IVR that forced you to wait in a queue before finally having your call being picked up by an agent in a customer support centre asking you: “-How may I help you?”.

 

Frustrating to be sent offline

 

It’s hardly ever a nice experience and what makes it more annoying is that you started your journey with that specific company or organization online. Due to international studies (The effortless experience), 60% of customers calling a company have started their journey online, so why then force customers offline? Pressing 1#, 2#, 3# and so on in an IVR often results in great frustration especially when you despite all effort end up in the wrong department.

 

A ‘Digital first’ engagement approach

 

So, once again, with having half of the population under thirty as your potential customers it’s time to leave the IVR centric Call Center approach and replace it with a Digital-First engagement approach. Customers are online and they want to stay online, you just need to find the most efficient and CX friendly way to engage with them online.

 

You don’t need the IVR online

 

Increase your digital engagement and orchestrate the customer journey by using the most efficient communications channels based on the journey, customer profile, context and errand. This will result in more revenue and customer satisfaction. Your digital engagement platform will track customer behaviour and understand where they are, what they have done and what they need. The IVR choices are not needed, the digital engagement platform will know what the errand is about and which person in your organisation that are best skilled to support.

With a digital engagement platform, you can first of all pre-process your visitors. That means building a visitor profile online where all visitors are analysed, and a profile is built on context, behaviour, events and so on. Then you can “dress” the profile with external data; ID, open orders, tickets and so on.

Proactive or reactive Engagement via the ‘at-the-moment’ best channel for that specific contact. The advisor can seamlessly blend any channels for example; If an errand is complex, then they can offer digital voice including co-browsing so that they can see exactly where the customers are on the web while talking to them, or offer AI/BOT support or live chat if it’s an easy errand.

If the errand is really complex the Engagement Engine can offer a calendar to schedule a digital meeting with an expert.

When in need of an expert the Engage Engine can offer a calendar to schedule a digital meeting. During the meeting, the expert can use all collaborative tools in the platform such as screen sharing, video and co-browsing.

 

Some of the benefits of a Digital Engagement solution:

 

  • Track customers' journeys on your website and build a profile based on their actions and history so you understand their needs. This will replace a frustrating IVR experience.
  • Keep your customers in their digital context, you can support them directly online, so they stay on their digital journey. A much more efficient way than forcing them offline.
  • Replace costly telephony and IVR solutions and adapt to your customer's new behaviour and demands.
  • Take advantage of the possibilities in a digital session. A Chat, Video chat or ‘Click to call’ allows you to share screens, exchange documents or sign documents.

 

Cloud Contact Centre, Contact Centre, Articles, Puzzel

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Business continuity software: from compliance tool to strategic advantage

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In those moments, resilience is not about having a document on a shelf, it’s about having absolute clarity on what needs to happen next. When an incident unfolds, leaders and response teams must be able to answer critical questions immediately: What actions need to be taken, and in what order? Who needs to be informed, and what do they need to know? Which services are truly critical and must be prioritised? Where and how will those services be recovered? And if recovery isn’t possible, what is the agreed fallback? Most organisations already hold the answers to these questions, but they’re scattered across spreadsheets, documents, and systems, often owned by different teams and updated at different times. In a crisis, that fragmentation quickly becomes a liability. This is where business continuity software proves its value. At its best, business continuity software does far more than store plans. It helps organisations understand themselves. By capturing and structuring information on critical services, recovery objectives, and the dependencies that underpin them, these platforms provide visibility that simply isn’t achievable through manual approaches alone. Technology, suppliers, facilities, data, and key people can all be mapped in a way that shows not just what’s important, but why it’s important and what it depends on. This insight enables organisations to create clear, actionable response strategies, playbooks, and contact groups that can be relied upon under pressure. It also allows teams to challenge assumptions, identify single points of failure, and uncover hidden risks before an incident exposes them. Many modern platforms also support real-time dependency analysis and data-gap reporting. This makes it possible to visualise upstream and downstream impacts and quickly understand the consequences of disruption. Attempting this level of analysis using spreadsheets or disconnected documents is slow, inefficient, and highly prone to human error, particularly during an incident. A single source of truth, when you need it most Another often overlooked benefit of business continuity software is the ability to act as a central, trusted source of truth. When offices are inaccessible, internal systems are unavailable, or teams are working remotely, continuity information still needs to be accessible. Secure, off-site platforms, typically available via both web browser and mobile, ensure that plans, contacts, and response information remain available even when the organisation itself is under strain. In practice, this accessibility can be the difference between a coordinated response and a reactive scramble. How business continuity software supports resilience Increasingly, business continuity software is being used not just to support response, but to underpin broader operational resilience objectives. Platforms such as Shadow-Planner, for example, are designed to help organisations move beyond static documentation and treat resilience as a living capability. By bringing together critical service identification, dependency mapping, recovery planning, and crisis response within a single environment, such tools help organisations maintain a clear, current view of their operational risk landscape. Used effectively, business continuity software supports better decision-making, clearer accountability, and faster mobilisation during disruption. It reduces reliance on individual knowledge, simplifies complexity, and helps ensure that the right information is available to the right people at the right time. Key takeaways Business continuity software should not be viewed as a compliance artefact or an emergency-only tool. When implemented and maintained properly, it becomes a strategic enabler, one that reduces risk, strengthens preparedness, and supports confident, coordinated action when disruption occurs. In an environment where resilience is increasingly scrutinised by regulators, customers, and boards alike, the real value of these platforms lies not in the software itself, but in the organisational clarity they enable. The right business continuity software doesn’t just help organisations respond to incidents. It helps make them stronger. By embedding resilience into everyday operations, it improves visibility of critical services, keeps plans accurate and actionable, and supports better decision-making. Business continuity becomes part of how the organisation operates, not just something it turns to in a crisis. About the author Colin Jeffs MBCI transitioned into business continuity from IT project management, where resilience was a core requirement of system implementation. He has over 30 years’ experience in business continuity, operational resilience, and crisis management, holding senior leadership roles within major financial institutions in the City of London. Colin now leads Wavenet’s award-winning operational resilience consulting and software division and co-designed the latest version of Shadow-Planner.

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