It’s not a secret that customers are essential for the existence, sustenance, and growth of any business. Then, as a business owner, how do you make sure that your clients enjoy the best customer experience, or simply CX? How do you keep your customers satisfied? How do you keep pace with customer needs and recent contact center trends?
Interactions with customers via call centers have become more sensitive than in the past and expectations are gaining new heights by the day.
Customers want exceptional relations with your company beyond good pricing and product quality. They are expecting a rewarding experience from personalized and consistent interactions with your firm.
Gaining Control of Customer Engagements
What if every customer could deal with your single most effective sales or service person?
Customer experience should be paid a lot of attention and effort. It must be at its best all the time. The profit from an excellent customer experience is of great value that has been declining in a lot of companies and corporations.
Devoted customers will pay 50% to 200% more to stay with your brand. Inspiring and maintaining such loyalty requires your organization to master the discipline of customer experience (CX), which necessitates a shift from the “quick fix” mentality to a continuous transformational effort.
Customers are increasing the demand for better services. Companies have a need for new enhanced methods in call centers other than the usual experience of the past. These have been the main reasons and push for technology innovation in order to a better customer experience in call centers.
In this article, we are taking a look at the recent contact center trends that are salvaging the decline of customer experience.
1. Analytics Empowered with AI & ML
AI and machine learning are finding a way into everything we do and how we do it. Their application is also easing and making the customer experience at call centers more exciting.
The use of AI call analytics and real-time speech-to-text transcription solutions can be a good example of improving contact center efficiency.
Effective and intelligent data analysis is needed for practical reporting and measuring customer satisfaction through call centers.
Data is king in today’s world of business. The integration of analytic tools with communication systems such as CRM is priceless.
AI and machine learning can also enhance flagging characteristics for actions in calls, messages, and other communication types, such as real-time and post-call.
Data harvested through feedback from customers, surveys, calls resolved, and emails can be used for quality assurance. Special analytic software can be deployed to understand customer behavior and identify or predict problems. They can also help to fine-tune the work process and derive more competent business methods.
The integrated solutions mentioned above can facilitate sales performance, compliance, and better customer experience. Business growth will be data-driven as there will be analytics to measure call agent performance.
2. Integrating Generative AI
While the previous trend highlights the importance of AI and ML technologies, the future of call centers is hard to imagine without generative AI. It has already entered and empowered many sectors, and customer interactions are no exception.
With the ability to generate human-like responses, GenAI systems can handle complex queries, craft personalized follow-ups, and even simulate empathetic communication, enhancing the customer experience. So, that’s no wonder why call centers are eagerly adopting this innovative technology.
Beyond chatbots, that we’ll talk about in detail in the next part, generative AI supports agents by summarizing calls, suggesting responses, and creating content for customer outreach. However, to improve customer service with this tech, businesses need to carefully balance call center automation with human oversight to maintain authenticity and trust.
GenAI for Business
Watch our webinar to uncover how to integrate GenAI for improved productivity and decisions.
3. Feature-Rich Chatbots and Virtual Assistants
It might seem that chatbots have become something outdated and have lost their grip compared to other tech tools. However, the impact they have on businesses is impressive. According to Sixth City Marketing, chatbots can complete 30% of tasks performed by today’s contact center staff.
Thus, chatbots keep remaining their position as one of the call center technology trends. A well-designed chatbot or virtual assistant helps streamline customer services by answering questions or even assisting a purchasing process.
Commonly, to address customer needs, chatbots should be implemented with the following features:
- Customer routing
- Sentiment analysis
- Co-browsing
- Personalized support
- Sessions analytics
- CRM integration
4. Omnichannel Communications and UCC
For companies to be ahead of the curve, they must be able to transform their business environment timely to stay relevant. Customers should enjoy proactive services, hence business owners must provide the most effective communication channels with full customer data and context.
The use of unified omnichannel tools gives room for possible communication with a customer at different channels simultaneously. Information can be sent to a customer from one channel, while valuable insights with feedback responses can be received at another channel. This gives the advantage of convenience and speed.
Unified communications and collaboration tools such as team collaboration applications will be an ace for contact centers. Team members of a workplace will be able to have common leverage on collective business intelligence and information.
The use of CRM can be more valuable if integrated with omnichannel communications or UCC tools. Such CRM integration will engage customer interactions with personality and empathy, which are essential for new-era customers who expect convenience, speed, and consistency.
5. Data-Driven Personalization
Of course, we can’t fail to mention personalization, or even hyper-personalization, among the top trends in the contact center industry. And this becomes possible thanks to data that companies collect and process today. By analyzing customer interactions, purchase histories, and preferences, agents can tailor their responses to meet individual needs.
For example, AI-based CRM systems can provide actionable insights in real time, empowering agents to anticipate customer concerns and offer solutions proactively. This, as you can imagine, not only improves satisfaction but also builds long-term loyalty by making customers feel recognized and appreciated.
Even though hyper-personalization isn’t something new as the demand for individualized service has been steadily growing over the past few years, we’ll definitely see it among contact center trends in the future. And companies that excel in data-driven personalization will have more opportunities to stand out in competitive markets.
6. Moving to the Cloud
Cloud communications is a standard for most growing service providers, including call centers. It covers effective communications for partners in business, employees, and customers. With cloud communications, you provide your team with a single platform for voice and video calls, SMS, instant messaging, etc.
Some advantages of cloud communications are as follows:
- Provide your team with effective communication tools and enhance mobility
- Save space as on-site infrastructure is minimal for cloud communications
- Have an effective and predictable cost
- Enable integration with other cloud services
- Regularly updated with new features and functionality
- Easy scalable with an open option for managing resources, network capacity, and features
Hiring remote professionals and supporting virtual offices is another one of the cloud contact center market trends today, followed by many organizations. Considering the advantages stated above, remote workspaces and workforce are implementable with easy maintenance. The use of cloud-based platforms and project management tools are effective facilitators for this.
Migration to the cloud is a sensitive process, and thus, it is better to engage the service of a vendor that specializes in providing cloud solutions, their implementation, and customization. It is advisable to make the transition process to the cloud in phases and at your own pace.
Take a look at a success story: Cloud Phone System Integration with Salesforce
Working with the right vendor will allow you to carefully plan the activities and run the transition process smoothly. They will also consider all your business requirements in order to adjust configuration and processes to fit your needs.
7. Prioritizing Security
Safeguarding sensitive information that contact centers handle today has become a top priority for many companies. Cyber threats, data breaches, and compliance mandates such as GDPR and CCPA have pushed organizations to invest in the improvement of call center process security and come up with new ideas to protect data.
End-to-end encryption, secure APIs, multi-factor authentication, and AI-driven threat detection systems are now integral to most operations. Furthermore, the compliance trends for contact centers include ongoing employee training on data handling and phishing awareness to ensure that human error is minimized.
8. Implementing Recall Technology
Human errors while sending written messages are unavoidable, even at call centers. The transition time of interaction when sending a message is essential, but additional seconds to this time for correction is not a loss. The use of a delay-recall mechanism can save contact centers lots of trouble with writing and sending messages online.
On Second Thoughts (OST) or Recall Technology can allow for aborting messages and resolving errors or any form of misinformation. Besides correcting errors and saving time and money, it does not interrupt the customer service experience.
Call center agents can be of the advantage by being able to undo or edit written messages in real time while still maintaining conversational flow. It is convenient and enhances the customer experience at the same time.
9. Embracing Conversation Intelligence
It sounds hackneyed, but knowledge is power. Thus, companies that leverage it can gain a solid competitive advantage. This is especially relevant for contact centers, where customer service often depends on information accuracy and how quickly it’s provided.
Knowledge management implemented as part of a contact center solution is designed to create, store, and organize data. It helps agents have quick access to consistent and accurate information to address customer needs or promote services.
Being one of the call center recent innovations, conversation intelligence empowers knowledge management to a greater extent. It helps agents access meaningful insights and prompts right on the call or even benefit from dynamic call scripts.
As a result, this technology trend adoption helps contact centers engage customers and guide them across their journey, handle objections, and save time on agent coaching.
10. Advanced Self-Service Methods
The use of self-service tools makes solving some issues faster, reducing the workload at call centers. It enables the client to have the “you can do it all by yourself feeling”.
Some customers prefer to go for self-service rather than contacting or consulting a call support agent. The use of FAQs, virtual agents and videos can help customers solve problems faster with less dependence on center agents.
Implementation of a resource library for customers might not be an innovation but still another one of ideas that call centers can use for a better customer experience. It provides round the clock services and complements the live agents making CX more comprehensive and convenient.
Gaining Control of Customer Engagements
What if every customer could deal with your single most effective sales or service person?
11. Following a Mobile-First Approach
As mobile software and devices dominate digital interactions, it’s no wonder they have become a popular trend within contact center processes. Companies are no longer hesitant about the adoption of a mobile-first strategy, optimizing their solutions to meet customers where they are.
This includes not only implementing mobile apps to complement web-based platforms but also integrating features like SMS and messaging in tech products and enabling in-app customer support. Plus, mobile-first design becomes non-negotiable, ensuring that customers can effortlessly switch between channels, such as chat and voice, while maintaining a consistent experience.
Such focus on mobile trends also helps with contact center automation since mobile-friendly interfaces allow agents to work with greater flexibility and optimize their tasks even on the go.
12. Focusing on Sustainability and Social Responsibility
Forward-thinking organizations know that, similarly to companies from other industries, the future of call centers should embrace sustainability and social responsibility. Today, they are increasingly important to both customers and businesses. But how to implement them in call centers?
First of all, there are universal eco-friendly practices such as remote work models to reduce carbon footprints. Then, there’s also the adoption of green technologies, like energy-efficient servers. Other effective ideas to incorporate in a call center are the development of strategies that ensure equitable hiring, support underserved communities, and align operations with ESG goals.
In the end, communicating these efforts transparently will certainly resonate with your customers, who are more likely to support brands that share their values.
The Way to Superior CX
The needs for today’s business operations can be complex and make the work of call agents to be cumbersome. Call agents should have all the appropriate enhancement and support to deliver in a single interaction.
Services and their corresponding technologies will always evolve together with client demands. Well-customized, agile, and nimble technological tools will create flexibility and help businesses to adapt to the rising challenges.
Business owners must pay attention to their methods of operation in order to provide the best service and customer experience via a call center.
There must be a focus on tools that support a business rather than trying to adjust to recent trends in the contact center industry. In this case, you need to thoroughly research available tools or consult with your software development partner to design a solution custom-tailored to your needs.
Velvetech is serving clients with call center automation and integration projects to help them extend and enhance their capabilities. Our solutions include an award-winning AI platform that resulted in a 52% lift in customer conversion rates.
Velvetech is continually growing its expertise and will be happy to discover your challenges and provide the right solution for your call center. Contact us today for a consultation.
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