Customers now want service on their terms. They expect an experience that takes very little effort and to find a solution to their issue easily. Most importantly, they want you to understand who they are and any past interactions your company has had with them. A great way to provide this kind of detailed support is a customer engagement center (CEC).

The CEC takes the call center of several decades ago and updates it to now include multiple channels where customers can engage with companies, including social media, communities, phone, Internet, and email. A CEC also helps you retain context around customers as they move across various channels.

Before you set up your customer engagement center, like most things, you need to get a plan in place. Below are four best practices for creating your CEC strategy:

1. Begin with the end in mind

Decide on what the end result of your CEC should be. Do you want to grow revenue? Increase customer satisfaction? Create loyal customers? Once you’ve chosen a focus, put the right metrics or KPIs (key performance indicators) in place to track what you do and measure the outcomes.

2. Recognize common customer categories

While there are many categories your customers can fall into, these are the most common:

• The customer you know everything about. One example is a customer that visits your web site either from their mobile device or through your app. You are able to provide personalized one-to-one service, because you have context around who they are.

• The customer you know nothing about. This type of customer visits your web site anonymously and has to be tracked via keystrokes. With a CEC, you can collect data from these types of interactions and use it to get to know customers better.

• The customer who knows what they want. An example of this is an existing customer who has registered on your web site. This should give you visibility into their interaction history and purchase history.

 3. Qualify the customers in each category

 Considering these additional customer qualifications will help inform your CEC set-up:

• Customers with service level agreements. (Those who purchase“platinum”support deserve higher service than those who bought “gold” level support.)

• How much the customer spent.

• The customer’s potential future revenue.

• If they influence other customers or your industry. (For instance, do they speak at conferences, maintain a popular blog or have a following on Twitter?)

4. Consider which tools your employees will need

The last step in getting your CEC strategy in place is examining the tools your customer service agents/employees will need.

• Which channels will you provide  for your customers? How many channels can your agents can manage at one time? For example, can your agents oversee a phone call while also managing a live chat, or will you have agents dedicated to specific channels?

• You should also determine how agents' computer and desktops are laid out. The objective should be to minimize the systems your agents are switching between to effectively serve/satisfy the customer. This can be done by linking to the appropriate backend systems so the right information is pushed to their screen.

Read more tips on how to build a CEC at your business by downloading this free e-book.