Excellent customer service is vital. 90%Opens a new window of consumers agree that high-quality customer service determines whether they will purchase from a business. Data silos prevent efficient customer service. Victorio Duran, associate SEO director, RingCentral, takes a look at how to eliminate them.
What Is a Data Silo?
A data silo is a collection of data that can only be accessed by a particular person or group of individuals and inaccessible to other people or groups who may also benefit from it.
For example, let us say you are a company that offers teleconferencing services. A customer asks you about how to make a group call on AndroidOpens a new window . Unfortunately, the customer data is in a silo. This means that the customer agent cannot access crucial customer information like the model and make of their phone or the version of the software they are using to resolve the issue seamlessly.
Why Should You Care About Data Silos?
Most companies are aware of the problems related to data breaches and data security. Employees have been educated on data security best practices, and many firms acquire an intrusion detection system.Â
Data silos, though, are sometimes considered a secondary problem. Here are some of the main reasons why you and your company should care about data silos:
- They prevent collaboration. Having data that is isolated prevents teams from working together on a common goal. This is because everyone is working independently on separate data instead of recommending solutions and assisting each other.Â
For example, if your sales team is trying to figure out how to get past the gatekeeper using cold emails, but data silos prevent them from acquiring information to personalize the emails, they are unlikely to succeed.Â
- Cloud databaseOpens a new window wastage. Having data that is inaccessible to a large portion of your teams often results in duplication. This wastes valuable company storage space.
- Time wastage. Let us say that you are a company that provides sales advice. A client asks your contact center questions such as “what is pitching a productOpens a new window ?†and “what is the best technique for my product?†Data silos will result in the agent having to acquire details from the customer again about their niche and products, which wastes time and reduces the quality of the customer experience.
- Imprecise data. As data silos are often left unobserved, they are rarely updated. Also, as we mentioned above, data silos can result in duplications. Instead of all the team working together to create the best data set, everyone is working independently on the same project. This increases the chance of human error.
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Learn More: Why Speech Analytics Will Become the Go-To Technology for Contact Centers
So, What Should You Do?
The first step of the data silo elimination process is often tedious and time-consuming.
You have to come to terms with and identify the issue. This means sitting down with your contact center teams and understanding the current limitations, requirements, and what data they need but do not have access to. It is pretty much like an audit.Â
The next step involves a thorough analysis of your existing data. It is a bit like reorganizing your whole filing cabinet again but in the cloud. But luckily, this is more straightforward than it sounds when you find the right tools.
Integration
In the same way that companies spend their budget on various productivity toolsOpens a new window and technology, data integration should also be at the top of their priority list. Contact center integration tools can analyze all of your current data and find similarities and patterns between all of the data points. This allows you to sort them into groups quickly.
Not only that, you can program the technology to organize the data based on specific and important factors. For example, purchase history, previous interactions, and general habits. These insights can provide you with a 360o view of your customer, increase your personalization, and allow you to cater to each consumer in the best way possible.
Learn More: Why You Need To Go Beyond the Cloud To Meet Customers Where They Are
How To Prevent Silos from Happening In the Future
The key to keeping data accessible and contact center agents in sync is unifying your data management tools and techniques. This involves choosing one system for all your business processes. Whether that is storage management, pre-processing, processing, or network management, if all the data is unified on one platform, there is a reduced chance of silos occurring again.
The other important but often overlooked prevention technique is improving your company’s collaborative culture. Data silos can often form because contact center agents are not communicating to a high enough level.
So, it is vital that you create or reinforce the importance of company and team collaboration. One of the best ways you can do this is by carrying out team-building activities. Employees that feel isolated are often over 20%Opens a new window less productive.
Data Silos
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To Sum Up
Data silos are like a dormant disease. They can often be challenging to identify and seem to cause no apparent problems. But, if left to fester, they can significantly reduce your whole business’s productivity, especially for your customer contact center. Customer service agents require all the relevant data to satisfy and delight your customer.Â
For example, if an agent extends a payment deadline for a customer but this is in a data silo, the whole order to cash (O2C processOpens a new window ) is compromised. It is vital for you to analyze and audit the issue, integrate and unify your data, and encourage a healthy collaborative working environment.
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