The CX industry has witnessed a lot of changes to the call center landscape over the years, from cloud communications and virtual agents to more use of analytics and intentional social media via artificial intelligence.
Contact centers have been constantly evolving and now, businesses manage communications through a plethora of contact center channels. When the unprecedented crisis had hit the entire call center industry and pushed businesses to modernize their business communications almost overnight, a dramatic increase in challenging calls, and new failures to resolve them emerged.
Furthermore, contact center businesses have already faced and dealt with multiple internal difficulties, including adjusting to remote work setup, and surviving through the unprecedented crisis. All this was harder than ever for companies, however, with advanced technologies including AI, ML, and NLP combined, leading brands customized the experience and their customers didn’t face many challenges.
Surprisingly, in the ever-changing world, even the best software isn’t sufficient for call centers to refine their services as a lot is happening in the domain of CX. Unless companies endeavor to stay ahead of the pack, best-in-class contact center service will remain elusive. Nowaday, companies are focusing on revolutionizing customer Journey management by increasing internal collaboration with contact center integrations.
In this blog, we’ve culled the top 10 trends likely to make a significant impact on the contact center industry.
Stay Ahead of Change in Contact Center Industry
As per the Ventana Research report, by 2030, “Artificial Intelligence will lead the verticalization of CX.”
Organizations leveraging digital-first mindset have already leaped ahead and now they are striving to make the best use of AI and ML to enhance global competitiveness.
Contact centers are being reimagined for the next generation of work. All this has already led to the curation of the list of call center trends and predictions in the next decade.
The following trends will continue to make significant contributions for call centers digitization
1. Analytics — The Driving Force
Traditional call centers used to rely majorly on the skills of their workforce to bolster the overall productivity. However, this strategy has been easily overtaken in the data-driven world. This paradigm shift in the way call centers enhance CX, offer better services and boost performance, but the pandemic has made the adoption more challenging.
A large number of call centers are leveraging robust data analytics tools to turn their metrics into meaningful insights for better decision-making in terms of the CX and services. Additionally, the use of quality assurance software for call center performance is also in trend.
2. Omnichannel Communication
Omnichannel communication has emerged as the mark of supremacy setting apart the big players from their competitors. Today, the majority of the customers don’t like to be confined to a single communication channel. They crave to interact with a company as per their convenience on social media, live chat, calls, and more.
Personalization has become the Key CX Parameter for 2022. Customers demand personalized support across all the channels and this is why omnichannel communication becomes quintessential.
Omnichannel communication unifies customer interactions for offering a seamless and best-in-class experience consistently.
3. AI-Powered Self-Service Tools
The number of customers looking for assistance has surged since the COVID-19 pandemic. Self-service in the customer service sector is highly appreciated for resolving the queries anytime in the personal capacity.
According to a study, more than “90% of customers prefer self-service options to find solutions if they are available.” This is sufficient to prove how important self-service is to consumers.
4. Increased Adoption of Recall Technology
Call centers are vulnerable to human error. With the help of AI, companies are implementing various communication enablement programs that solve the chaos of miscommunication in the organization. Need proof? “AI is a high priority for over 80% of call centers and more than 50% of agents attesting to its effectiveness.” This technology makes it convenient for agents to ban erroneous messages from reaching the consumers and promptly resolve the issues. Adapting Recall technology is an excellent way for call centers to maintain accuracy in every conversation.
5. Digital Transformation
For a long time, businesses have worked on the pricing and quality issues to stay in the market and differentiate themselves from competitors. However, today this tactic is not sufficient to woo customers. Now consumers demand something more. They are gravitating towards brands providing best-in-class experiences that lead to long-term relationships. Today, it is confirmed that digital transformation plays an imperative role for the call center operations.
6. Social Media Engagement is Becoming Need of the Hour
According to Statista, “Social media is growing exponentially and nearly 53% of the world’s population is using social media.” It comes as no surprise that CX experts have mentioned how social media platforms are making a huge difference for customer service companies and their users.
The growing exposure of social media has elevated brands and become an integral element of unified communication. And two-way social media communication is taking center stage in the call center industry. This, arguably, is one of the call center present and future trends.
7. Cloud Communication in Call Centers
Businesses have been leveraging cloud communication to enhance productivity and efficiency of remote call agents. Cloud Communication platforms provide supervisors with the secure and user-friendly space to interact with remote agents on multiple locations.
8. IVR will Stay for Long
Interactive Voice Response has been in the trend for a long time and is here to stay for long. In fact, in response to remote work culture, the majority of the companies adopted this technology for the first time. As per Statista, 2020, 42% of organizations already using IVR increased its use many times. The combination of IVR + AI has given birth to advanced IVR systems like conversational IVR with more substantial roles across the industries.
Besides, AI and IVR systems extract crucial and historical data from the customers’ interaction history to enable agents to deliver personalized experiences consistently.
What Customers Expect from Customer Service Companies?
Customer service is solely responsible for making or breaking businesses. Companies that have been placing excellent customer service as the topmost priority witness best results in terms of revenue and reputation.
This uncertain marketplace is already exemplified by constantly changing customer demands and now meeting their expectations is an arduous challenge. Customers and their satisfaction levels have become the focal point of the customer service industry but it is really unfortunate that their expectations keep changing.
