Reduce Customer Frustration with Context Cookies

My children — who are not little kids and more accurately young adults — don’t remember a time without easy access to the internet.  They’re pretty savvy, not only because they’ve grown up online, but also because after years of working in digital marketing, I have inadvertently destroyed a lot of “marketing magic” found online by explaining how things work.  A few months ago, they purchased a bracelet for me online from a popular jewelry-maker. They tried really hard to surprise me, but they made a mistake that blew their cover early on.

My sixteen-year-old daughter did her initial research on my iPad.  The next time I picked up my tablet, I was bombarded with banner ads for multiple styles from this jewelry maker.  Thanks to browser cookies, small pieces of data sent from a website and stored on a user’s computer by the user’s web browser, I was being served images of bracelets that my daughter looked at as possibilities but ultimately were not purchased.

While this turned into an irritating situation for my kids, this same concept behind browser cookies can be applied to the contact center to improve the customer experience. Consider a study from late 2013 that showed 89% of consumers say they are annoyed when they have to repeat themselves about the same issue. When a customer moves between channels or from self-service to agent-assisted, including the context behind what they’re trying to be accomplished allows the customer to continue seamlessly without the need to repeat themselves.

To provide context to an agent companies need an easily accessible data store capable of tracking past transaction across any channel. Tools like Aspect’s Continuity Server™ allows website, mobile app and IVR systems developers to collect and store small traces of information, known as Context Cookies, about the customer journey.

Examples of data collected include:

• Most recent page of your website the customer visited
• Last time the customer talked to an agent
• Last issue discussed with an agent
• Dropout point in last IVR interaction
• Last transaction in mobile app

Learn more about how Context Cookies and Experience Continuity can provide a frictionless customer experience here. 

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