Understanding contact center trends and implementing them properly is the only way to get competitive advantage and overcome rivals in rapidly changing call center industry.
Why so?
At least because call centers are much more susceptible to changes in customer demands and customer expectations than other businesses.
Last years, omnichannel customer support and fast service were the cornerstones of successful call center strategy. Is it still this way?
But, come 2024, these trends are not yet outdated, but they are not enough.
The wide spread of AI-driven tools and even VR technologies have changed the industry, even though they are still on early development stage. What is coming next? Let’s deal with that question and discover key call center technology trends
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Contact center trend 1: Blended support
When we say blended customer support, we do not mean symbiosis of outbound calls and inbound calls – that’s not what makes the difference. The implementation of AI-powered tools is the thing that can change customer experience and make it consistent, as well as enhance agent productivity.
Many reasons.
- Use of AI self-service options is the way to free agents from dealing with routine tasks and repetitive tasks, as well as it can also drive customer satisfaction by empowering customers to resolve their issues through advanced self-service channels.
- AI also improves the quality and precision of call routing, allowing to route cases to best-fitting agents without manual setting – only based on customer sentiment analytics.
Contact center trend 2: Unified-CXM with CCaaS
Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) is the best alternative to on-premises contact center solutions which have already outlived their lifespan. But why?
- CCaaS is a solution that offers enhanced scalability and flexibility, especially in terms of set up and maintenance.
- It helps to build omnichannel customer service platform from scratch, without investing a fortune in it.
But when CcaaS is integrated with Customer Experience Management solution, it is even better for you – you can now achieve up-to-minute customer sentiment analytics and provide personalized experiences from the single platform.
Contact center trend 3: Mobile-first solutions for resolution
Only a little part of contact center owners have already switched to mobile-first solutions, even though it offers better flexibility for agents and opens new opportunities for providing consistent customer service from any part of the world.
Mobile-first solutions are the current call center trend that is going to grow in popularity and make desktop-only solutions ineffective.
Contact center trend 4: IoT & connected devices for pre-emptive service
The adoption of IoT and machine-to-machine (M2M) communication is experiencing a notable surge. Recent industry reports indicate that in 2021, over 10 billion devices were actively connected to the IoT. Projections suggest this figure will escalate to 25.4 billion devices by 2030.
With a centralized repository, agents can access customer data using any device at any time. This empowers every employee to be the “right employee” for customers, as they all possess equal access to information. Additionally, wearable devices, bolstered by IoT technology, provide agents with convenient access to information while on the move, facilitating real-time updates and seamless communication with supervisors and peers.
Leveraging real-time data from interconnected devices, businesses can promptly identify and resolve customer issues, leading to proactive assistance and personalized experiences.
Contact center trend 5: Automation at first contact
Automation at first contact is the process of implementing different technologies in order to automate initial contact with the company – through the use of chatbots or other self-service tools.
Latest call centers industry trends also include Robotic Process Automation (RPA) as the best way to automate repetitive tasks and manual routine.
RPA helps customer service representatives to extract data from different sources and receive permanent access to customer profiles with details of previous customer interactions and other important informatio that can be useful during customer service interactions.
Another vital role of RPA is data validation, a AI-powered bots can check the information validity and accuracy of different sources, providing agents and customers with data that is 100% accurate.
Contact center trend 6: AI-powered intent tagging and intuition moderation
Contact centers can employ AI-powered intent tagging to prioritize customer messages necessitating an immediate response.
For instance, if a customer submits a product-related query, it is labeled as an “inquiry,” prompting immediate attention from customer service representatives.
AI-powered intuition moderation enables contact centers to automatically route, categorize, and prioritize customer queries.
Moreover, high-priority queries are identified for swift responses. Intuition moderation also aids in categorizing messages and directing them to agents most equipped to address them.
Contact center trend 7: Real-time conversational analytics
Conversational analytics are another example of advanced AI-powered capabilities to analyze customer behavior, key patters and customer sentiment during live conversations in order to identify problem areas and find fast solutions.
This, combined with fast access to the history of previous interactions and detailed customer data, allows customer support agents to provide personalized customer service and ensure meeting customer service standards and requirements.
Contact center trend 8: Automating daily & housekeeping tasks
An emerging trend in contact centers is the adoption of automated guided workflows, which prove highly beneficial in handling repetitive tasks, particularly the accurate input of customer information into CRM databases.
Automating this process enables contact centers to efficiently dispatch automated messages and emails to their leads. Implementing guided workflows not only saves valuable time for agents but also enhances overall workflow efficiency, leading to improved customer service and satisfaction.
Contact center trend 9: AI-powered sentiment mapping
Another significant trend in contact centers is AI-powered sentiment mapping. This involves utilizing AI-powered sentiment analysis to determine the emotional tone of conversations between agents and customers, whether positive or negative. This process is instrumental in creating personalized experiences for each customer.
Both voice calls and online chat sessions undergo real-time analysis. Additionally, AI-powered sentiment mapping allows contact centers to monitor agent performance and ensure quality assurance.
How to leverage contact center trends in 2024
As you can see, in 2024, trends in call center industry are focused on ensuring cost-effectiveness, enhancing self-service and providing deep insights into customer experience.
1. Focus on global distribution of workforce
First of all, you have to understand that the era of in-house-only call centers has passed away. This means that you have to deal with organizing the work of your remote customer service teams, no matter whether you will switch all your customer service reps online or only a part of them.
The organization of the work of remote agents depends mostly on the technologies you use, which means you can’t ignore the importance of solutions that ease the work of remote teams – this relates to contact center software and its ability to provide agents with comprehensive interface, all required tools, and what’s much more important – you have to be furnished with options to monitor and control your agents’ work remotely.
Another important feature is your ability to plan your workforce management strategy effectively in order to use your agents efficiently and optimize their schedules to find balance between agent satisfaction and call center productivity.
2. Self-service by default
Gartner has found that 70% of people use customer self-service channels for customer service issues resolution, which means that most customers prefer resolving their issues independently, without involving customer service agents.
Putting aside the reasons of such situation, all call centers have to focus on leveraging self-service capabilities in order to automate as many customer service processes as possible without reducing the quality of service and quality of customer experience. Thus, focusing on implementing self-service opportunities has to be combined with AI (Artificial Intelligence) implementation in your call center as it is the only technology that can bring self-service interactions to another level that is compatible with human interactions.
3. Rethink security policies
To bolster the security of remote work environments, contact centers are increasingly embracing call center technology trends such as virtual private networks (VPNs), private cloud systems, “dummy” workstation machines, and more. It’s imperative to educate your workforce on security measures and contact center compliance.
Implement VPN multi-factor authentication, significantly enhancing security compared to sole reliance on passwords. Two-factor authentication aids in tracking access to sensitive information stored on cloud systems.
4. Harness a digital-first approach
Organizations that approach customer interactions across various channels—social media platforms, messaging apps, live agents, and chatbots—as part of a unified customer journey stand to gain from an omnichannel approach – that’s another one of contact centre technology trends.
By integrating customer-facing functions like sales, marketing, and customer service, data flows seamlessly across departments. This provides businesses with a comprehensive understanding of each customer, enabling them to initiate conversations through preferred social media channels and seamlessly transition to live chat on the company website later, without the need to reiterate their situation or repeat crucial details.