The contact centre landscape has witnessed significant transformation in recent years, accelerated by the pandemic and changing consumer expectations. As organisations increasingly adopt work-from-home models and place greater emphasis on customer experience, Contact Centre as a Service (CCaaS) solutions have evolved to meet these demands. Keep reading to learn more about three essential trends that IT decision-makers should be aware of as they navigate the CCaaS market and make informed choices.
Artificial Intelligence
According to Gartner, companies have invested billions in AI spending solutions within contact centres, motivated by the significant value, cost reduction, and efficiency they provide. Introduction of these features gives companies 100% visibility into interactions between customers and agents,
The use of chatbots and other AI features allows CCaaS vendors to enable tools that handle routine enquiries not requiring a human touch. AI can delegate self-service options and allow customers to find information and perform certain tasks on their own. These features also improve efficiency and customer satisfaction through other metrics. For example, the ChatGPT phenomenon alone has allowed contact centres to integrate AI features like call transcription and summary and custom data charting and analysis into their offerings.
AI-powered routing systems also help connect customers to the right agent, reducing the time taken to transfer the call or escalate the issue. Analytics tools identify certain trends, patterns, and areas of improvement during a call, which can help the contact centre make better informed, data driven decisions. AI algorithms can also analyse historical data and customer patterns, leading to better-predicted future demand. This helps identify peak and off-peak periods, allowing the workforce to align accordingly, reducing understaffing and overstaffing situations.
In today’s market, finding the balance between automation and human expertise is the differentiator. In fact, it is crucial to delivering a personalised, high-quality customer service experience.
Optimisation via Evolving CC Features
To support the customer experience, businesses should explore personalisation options in their Contact Centre solutions that allow for more tailored interactions and effective communication. Efficient issue resolution is key in servicing customers by giving them real-time and rapid solutions to their problems. Proactive and targeted customer communication, such as automated notifications with timely updates, also builds positive relationships and fosters the right engagement and customer satisfaction. Additionally, offering omnichannel support across multiple communication channels allows customers to reach out using their preferred means.
Through this optimisation, an organisation can achieve a high level of business continuity, helping to minimize the fear of downtime by harnessing the power of data analytics. Plus, a Cloud-based solution can bring added benefits to a contact centre in terms of scalability, flexibility, and cost-efficiency. Not only do solutions like these offer reduced infrastructure and maintenance costs, but they offer the advantage of rapid deployment and scalability by demand.
New IT Decision-Makers
Due to the increasing capabilities of CCaaS systems, other areas of business are being impacted. The role of IT decision-makers has shifted and grown, as they are now responsible for evaluating a wider range of technologies and factors.
The CIO, CTO, and other technology leaders are the influencers on contact centre vendor selection nearly 60% of the time, according to the Customer Experience Transformation Global Research Study from Metrigy. The Chief Customer Officer and/or CX leaders are involved 35% of the time. However, these stakeholders are no longer focused on the traditional telephony systems. Instead, they must evaluate the impact of advanced features on their IT stack and their organization as a whole.
As organisations further focus on aligning technology investments with their customer-centric strategy, collaboration between these leaders will only continue. By these two groups working together, they can better understand customer expectations and identify the right technology solutions. Along the way, IT decision-makers must still prioritize scalability and flexibility to make sure contact centre solutions can accommodate growth, handle fluctuations in demand, and adapt to the constant change in customer preferences and the market. These decisions are no longer ones that can be made by one person, or without support and technical expertise.
These three notable trends can help both IT decision-makers and Trusted Advisors differentiate between contact centre options and best understand an organisation’s technology needs. Improved customer experience, cost effectiveness, business continuity, and both executive and organisational buy-in will likely remain top of mind for IT decision-makers. Therefore, these factors are what will also drive changes to the contact centre landscape and guide stakeholders.
To learn more about these trends, download our free CCaaS 6-12 Report!