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I recently placed an online order for a new fishing line from a sporting goods store, whose previous point of contact consisted of just a voice line (and an online presence of a Facebook page with the occasional picture of the trophy bass).

Did you ever see the episode of “Friends” where the always-principled Phoebe Buffay spends the entire show on hold with her phone company’s customer service?

Do you believe that the relationship between your business and its customers ends when they make a purchase? If so, your digital customer engagement might need a little tweaking to meet the needs of today’s modern consumers. Customers today require a lot more attention than they might have a few decades ago. People today are used to having their needs met instantaneously; doing otherwise can lead to a loss of business.

Now that 2021 is upon us and there is a faintly visible conclusion to the pandemic, the question remains – will public sector contact centers revert to the models they had relied on prior to COVID-19? The answer is unequivocally NO. Regardless of how the adoption of new flexible models in the contact center arrived (and yes, the speed with which it was done amid the pandemic was a painful way to do it) the reality is, it’s done. Contact center leaders have made the pivot.

Digital has far-reaching implications not just for how organizations provide service today, but also for how much more change is coming in the very near future. Those who “win” customer service will need to completely reimagine it—and digital will be central to that.

Your customers are living their lives digitally, so meeting them where they live makes it easier for them to communicate with you. Connecting with customers on platforms that they use and are familiar with goes a long way to driving an exceptional customer experience. Agents can engage with customers on these digital channels but so can bots, using the same rules you're applying to a chat on your website.

It's tempting to put 2020 behind us and move on, but before you get out your shovel and put it in the ground, you should do some honest lessons learned about the past year and use the information to guide your 2021 contact center investments.