At its core, a contact centre is about an agent who can best help a customer. “Help” is the key word, as contact centres often serve as the first point of contact and can help establish loyalty. And help is a central element in these contact centre or call centre industry trends.
Trend 1: The contact centre as a 'relationship hub'
Contact centre agents are the first to know if something isn’t working and are poised to advise the business. Agents are the conduit between customers, sales, marketing — and even product teams. In short, the relationships that agents build with customers are the core of customer service.
Contact centre insights are vital at every stage of business development, supplying sales and marketing with repeat purchasers and advocates, as well as an essential data point for product management and development.
Key takeaway:
- Agents can champion a feedback loop and provide insights to help sales, marketing, and product teams.
Trend 2: Customer service agents have become 'super agents'
Customers are growing more savvy and self-reliant. Many will first use forums and user communities to find answers. At the same time, AI virtual assistants are increasingly handling the more straightforward customer questions.
This suggests that, frequently, only more-complex problems will make it to a live contact centre agent. Agents must be ready to tackle challenging issues and pinpoint exactly what went wrong — and managers must weigh these skills in their hiring process.
Aside from excellent communication skills, agents will need problem-solving skills, strong project management, and, in some cases, technical training to understand the finer details of the product or service. Agents must also adapt to changes in contact centre or call centre technology and quickly reference data in the customer relationship management platform (CRM).
Applying speech and sentiment analytics to contact centre interactions can unearth valuable data, and all that stored data can be used to target specific training needs, reducing agent ramp time and increasing agent satisfaction.
Also, companies are increasingly enabling their agents to reach beyond the contact centre and consult with experts throughout the business. This helps to resolve difficult issues and drive first-contact resolution. The ability to quickly find and collaborate with an available resource is embedded within the agent desktop. This truly puts the enterprise at the service of its customers.
Key takeaways:
- Generally, only more-complex problems will make it to a contact centre agent.
- Agents need a comprehensive skill set and quick thinking to fully navigate contact centre demands and deliver exceptional service.
Trend 3: Call routing + agent capacity find the 'perfect match'
Pairing customers with the right agent has always been a contact centre trend. In fact, intelligent call routing is available now and its popularity will only grow. A complex “match-making” process occurs every time a customer calls, to quickly match the customer with the right expert.
For example, routing can help deliver positive customer experiences by connecting calls to the best available agent through skills-based routing or case-owner routing. Customers can also request a specific agent — one familiar with their issue or perhaps with a prior history. As a result, customers have shorter wait times and agents with the right skill set are prioritized in the queue.
At the same time, agent capacity has become a key factor in delivering exceptional customer service. Calls can be routed based on the amount of time a particular interaction might require — e.g., a live interaction like a phone call demands more time and effort than a non-live interaction like an email — and the assigned optimum workload of individual agents.
In the agent capacity model, an item is funnelled to an agent whose workload best matches the type of interaction, instead of to any agent who is available.
Key takeaways:
- Contact centres leverage CRM data to effectively route callers to the best-skilled agent.
- Intelligent routing optimizes the total experience through shorter wait times for customers, a prioritized call list for agents, and an increased likelihood of first contact resolution.
- Agent capacity adds another layer of optimization to customer service.
Trend 4: Video chat and screen sharing have become increasingly popular
Everybody wants everything, fast. Rather than wait on hold, customers engage in chat to accelerate the resolution. But there’s a new option — video chat. Video chat and screen sharing capabilities allow contact centres to anticipate problems as customers navigate their website and ensure that the right agent pops up at the right time. Businesses also like the ability to brand contact centre video with their own logo, establish it as a native channel, and seamlessly pull it into their analytics and reporting.
Key takeaway:
- Customers may feel a more personal connection through video chat.
Trend 5: Cloud-based contact centres, remote agents, and location-based services are here to stay
Contact centres were ahead of the curve — even before the pandemic — as companies identified the cost savings, employee flexibility, and efficiencies gained through cloud-based, remote services.
Of course, customers have enjoyed — if not expected — similar flexibility. And location-based services can help. For instance, a customer calling a company could be automatically connected to an agent working remotely just a few miles away. The agent could even arrange to meet the customer in person if necessary, which could be very useful for certain sectors.
Key takeaways:
- Reduced costs, increased labour pool, and greater employee flexibility are key benefits to remote working.
- Location-based services offer localized and personalized customer service.
Trend 6: Today's contact centres, built on AI
AI in contact centres is already firmly established, solving common concerns that don’t require human interaction, such as providing directions, giving store hours, refilling prescriptions, and more.
But now, AI needs to be at the heart of contact centre operations. A contact centre powered by AI is more efficient and saves costs and valuable agent time.
AI is supercharging agents, helping them with knowledge base lookups and predicting next best actions. This not only helps to drive down call length and drive up customer experiences (CX), but also reduces the ramp time and training needed for new agents or those under-performing.
AI virtual assistants can automate routine tasks, provide instant responses, and offer personalized solutions. Integrate them with CRM systems and other business processes, and order or delivery status, appointment rescheduling, and other tasks can be automated tasks. Agent assistance capabilities operate like a co-pilot next to the contact centre agent, performing tasks like providing real-time transcriptions of customer conversations, analysing customer sentiment, or recommending articles from a knowledge base.
What’s more, contact centres can further enhance the customer experience through conversational AI. A voice AI representative — with natural language understanding — can answer customers immediately, facilitate a conversation to understand their needs, and triage the next appropriate action.
If necessary, AI can leverage its intelligent, dynamic, and personalized data-driven capabilities to route the call to the best available agent. This provides scalable and repeatable benefits to businesses, and ensures that agents are prepared to handle calls based on demand and type.
Key takeaways:
- AI can provide timely help when human interaction is not required or during peak demand periods.
- Virtual assistants automate routine tasks, provide instant responses, and offer personalized solutions.
- Conversational AI can use natural language understanding to greet callers, triage, and route as needed.
Trend 7: Unified Communications as a Service and Contact Centre as a Service converge communications
An increasingly hybrid work environment, the need to connect and collaborate, and the growing focus on customer engagement are part of today’s business requirements. Integrated, customized, embedded, and personalized solutions are essential to meet the needs of the new, modern workplace.
This is where the merging of UCaaS and CCaaS technologies elevates the experience for all parties:
- Access to CRM and collaboration and business apps within a single dashboard provide contact centre agents with the insights and infrastructure to do their work
- The ability to add communications options — video, messaging, chat, etc. — to further engage customers on their channel of choice
Key takeaway:
Merging UCaaS and CCaaS technologies can help companies address the needs of a hybrid workforce and engage with customers.
Keep pace with evolving trends
You can keep pace with the rapidly evolving customer service landscape with the cloud-based Vonage Contact Centre, which brings you the features and capabilities you need. Learn more about Vonage Contact Centre today.