The greatest Cricket World Cup matches are remembered for teamwork when it mattered most: Australia vs. South Africa in 1999, Ireland vs. England in 2011, and India vs. Sri Lanka in 2011.

Cricket shares a lot with American baseball. But one difference is that cricket players change positions in the middle of a game, as teams continually match their strategies against those of their opponents. This requires complex teamwork, where the roles of the star “all-rounders” shift fast — they might bat now, bowl later or keep wicket.

Customer service agents — whether inside or outside the contact center — play essential, multifaceted roles as well. They have different skills that you call on, as needed, to play the right role at the right time. The challenge has been connecting those roles in ways that addresses customer expectations and productivity goals.

Take the Stress Out of Customer Engagement

Most businesses either use Microsoft Teams today to connect employees — or plan to in the near future. But, until now, it was difficult to take advantage of the strengths of Microsoft Teams across an organization, even for common use cases.

Let’s consider the lending process for mortgages. Typically, it’s the biggest financial decision of a customer’s life. So, naturally, it’s fraught with anxiety. There’s anxiety for the support agent, too, because:

  • It takes multiple interactions to complete
  • It’s complicated and requires different skills along the way
  • It transpires over a long period of time during which things change

That’s what it’s like to watch a cricket match. They last for days. You engage for a few minutes then go back to whatever you were doing until the next time you hear the footsteps of the bowler.

An agent working on mortgages juggles several jobs that start, stop and change throughout the long process. Loan fulfillment isn’t a traditional contact center type of position, yet these employees need the same availability of customer information, context and support from colleagues.

In fact, they’re like omnichannel agents, doing paperwork that’s coming in via email, fax and phone calls. And they must respond promptly to customer queries to control an experience that’s both exhilarating and frightening. In addition to that, no single person has all the answers they need.

Imagine that you’re helping a customer close on a house and something goes wrong. The closing amount changed and you’re off by $2,000. It’s the precise moment when you need to call on team expertise — whether it’s in the contact center, back-office administration or with a decision maker who can step in.

Because agents work in several different systems across multiple devices, toggling back and forth to find answers creates more inefficiency and friction, stifling collaboration efforts and making it more time-consuming and cumbersome to serve customers.

Extend the Power of Teams with Genesys Cloud

The integration of Genesys Cloud and Microsoft Teams expands collaborative capabilities by enabling employees to call Teams users throughout your organization, all from within the Genesys CloudTM platform — even when these experts are outside of the contact center. Together, the solutions make it easy to match your strategy against customer needs and play the right position at the right time. After all, it’s no good having a team of batsmen who can’t rely on your fielders.

And, while customer engagement often starts in the contact center, your workforce might be dispersed worldwide as well as working remotely. Still, they need to be connected to the larger team at will. With Teams and Genesys Cloud, it’s like having an agent on the cricket field with a partner. They may be 5,000 miles apart, but they can collaborate or even switch responsibilities as customer interactions progress. Empowering agents with fast access to the support they need improves productivity and customer service.

Purpose-Built Tools In the Cloud

Cricket is a game of timing and technical perfection. Its beauty is in the dedication, ability and talent of the team. Enabling that and empowering your players to do what they do best reaps big rewards in business, too.

Both Microsoft Teams and Genesys Cloud are purpose-built, cloud-based tools, best-in-class in their capabilities. Like the partnership between two great batsmen, we’re better together because we leverage each other’s strengths to help you win with customers.

View the on-demand webinar to see Genesys Cloud and Microsoft Teams in action.