Contact centers meet the needs of more connected customers

Call centers took center stage when the coronavirus pandemic hit, with call volumes surging more than 800% above normal levels, according to Pindrop. An unprecedented number of customers suddenly needed to defer payments, access government services, cancel travel plans, and check shopping orders, all from home. There’s no doubt that the pandemic has forced customer service organizations to adapt and change at breakneck speed. But the evolution of the customer experience was already underway long before the first lockdown.

Over the past 20 years, we have seen traditional voice call centers transform into contact centers that expand engagement through multiple communication channels, including SMS, apps, text, email, social media and the web. Advances in technology have delivered an omnichannel experience that enables customers to easily switch between channels throughout their journey.

Then the pandemic hit. Even as anxious customers tried to get critical assistance, contact centers were busier, supporting employees working from home. The weaknesses of contact centers were clearly exposed, with customer demands for faster, more effective service, deeper, more personal connections, and greater flexibility to adapt to unexpected crises and opportunities.

Today, contact centers must not only address these weaknesses, they also need to be flexible and scalable while continuously improving the user experience. This requires new capabilities that are shaping the future of customer support.

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Bridging the front and back offices

In addition to keeping families, friends, and classrooms connected during the pandemic, video conferencing has become the backbone of maintaining contact center operations throughout the pandemic. However, these online interactions are often isolated, limiting collaboration and sometimes even hindering the user experience.

With the shift from face-to-face service and engagement to digital models, businesses now need a more collaborative, seamless approach to customer service that breaks down the silos between front and back office and engagement channels. Doing this requires moving away from the “factory floor” call center to a model that leverages workflow collaboration, using activities and team-based work by default.

The Workflow Collaboration model replaces standalone meeting tools and applications with a configurable workspace built on workflows. Customer service teams can communicate across channels, integrating with business workflows and external applications. They can share files, and conversations can be picked up and stopped at any time period. Moments can be tagged and referenced as digital artifacts, so agents can provide more context and personalized experiences.

Given all the possibilities unlocked by the workflow collaboration model, it’s no surprise that Gartner predicts that by next year, 70% of teams will rely on workflow collaboration as their primary mode for communicating, coordinating and sharing information. With the addition of artificial intelligence (AI), even more insights can be added to support actionable activities, driving experiences that are not only relevant, but also delightful, satisfying and profoundly helpful to customers.

Optimize self-service

Gartner predicts that by 2022, 85% of customer service interactions will start with self-service, up from just 48% today. Why this shift? Over the past year, we’ve all learned that physical channels can disappear overnight. Digital channels are the only ones left, and many customers now prefer to get service on their own. Continuing to improve these interactions means enabling them to get answers to their questions on the device they want, on the channel of their choice—in other words, providing automation with a human touch.

Customers prefer self-service for its speed and efficiency, but it also needs to be effective. Through the use of AI bots, voice and facial biometrics, and other emerging technologies, self-service can establish a quick, personal connection for common and repetitive tasks while freeing up agents to address more complex and strategic issues.

Rapidly add new features

As we move into the next normal, enterprises are challenged to deploy an ever-changing portfolio of applications. From artificial intelligence to speech analytics to intelligent routing and more, new capabilities are emerging to provide effortless self-service, interactive insights, faster response times, and more. It is nearly impossible for enterprises on their own to identify the technologies that can best solve their unique challenges, let alone engage with and integrate each vendor.

Many companies are trying to anticipate this paradigm shift by expanding their cloud application ecosystems and customizable features to enable customers to smoothly get what they need.

Integrating AI in the enterprise

AI-based customer service is rapidly gaining ground due to its ability to identify customer issues faster than traditional methods. In fact, Gartner predicts that by 2022, 70% of customer interactions will involve emerging technologies such as machine learning, virtual assistants and chatbots.

It’s clear that AI-driven applications are here to stay and will continue to push the boundaries of customer experience and drive business outcomes. However, their value can only be realized if they can be effectively infused into the overall experience. Companies must combine this AI technology with true customer experience expertise, grounded in domain-specific data, to realize the promise of the intelligent contact center.

Continue to raise the bar on CX

Looking ahead, user experience will continue to be key to business success. However, this requires new capabilities, constant innovation, new scale, performance, and flexibility. Contact centers must continue to adapt to the changing times by integrating open cloud platforms, agile solutions to meet customer needs, and constantly focusing on innovation to deliver the highest quality experience.