Senior Writer: Naim Vakil
Date: September 18, 2024The main objective of any contact center is to deliver excellent service and gain more customers for a business organization, right?
But what happens if you don’t stay abreast of the latest trends in the field of contact center solutions?
Your call center will lose steam – not only staff members, but even customers will remain disengaged due to unproductive work techniques and slow processes.
Technology is surging ahead at a face pace, and it is essential for organizations to be aware of outbound and inbound call center solutions. If you are still using traditional methods instead of outbound call center software and interactive voice response systems, your agents will remain demotivated and disengaged.
Customers don’t want to waste time. A global customer service survey by Microsoft reports that 33% of customers prefer to resolve an issue in a single interaction, whatever is the length of the call.
This shows the necessity of using the contact center softwares to boost speed and agility in service – it can give call centers the required impetus in business operations and streamline communication in a structured manner. In the meantime, learn what is CCaaS so that you can integrate it more efficiently into your communication strategy.
We have entered 2023 with a bang, and the time is ripe for call centers to adopt the latest technological platforms to drive efficiency and better outcomes. Here are five rising trends that can help to save time, build customer engagement and increase lead conversion rates in call centers:
1. Presence On Multiple Digital Channels:
The modern customer is tech-savvy, and usually has an online presence on a number of digital channels. Using your outbound call center software to only make phone calls on your mobile phone would be a drastic mistake that will lead to less lead conversion and engagement.
The need of the hour is to have context-driven interaction with clients on mediums of preferred communication. Contact center software enables businesses to get in touch with customers through Internet calls on Watsapp, Viber, Skype, Facebook, or Instagram. It also supports instant messaging, email, or live support chat options.
Having a unified communication approach across a series of touchpoints facilitates predicting customer behavior, reduces the need to ask repetitive questions, and speeds up the process of problem resolution.
2. Cloud-Based Deployment:
Cloud technology has taken over the business world by storm over the last decade or so. And your business needs this cloud technology to make your businesses work seamlessly across geographic boundaries, without investing massive amounts in infrastructure and hardware setup.
A report by Forbes has revealed that by the year, 83% of enterprise workloads will be in the cloud. That’s not surprising, considering the level of flexibility and scalability that they offer to businesses. This trend has caught up with the call center industry too, and most of the tools are deployed in the cloud.
Leveraging the power of cloud technology means that call centers do not need to deal with storing huge amounts of manual customer information, as it is securely stored in the cloud. There are no connectivity issues for support staff members, and they can answer customer calls from anywhere in the world. It’s time to jump on board the cloud, and escalate all vital performance parameters for your call center!
3. Harness Voice Biometrics:
One of the latest features of a contact center over call center is voice authentication through advanced biometric technology, which is solving most call center problems. It aims to identify customer’s voices; hence they will not need to repeat their case history to agents, even if they call through a different phone number.
Voice biometrics is a great time-saver and facilitates call centers to provide a higher quality of service. Another advantage of adopting this technology is that it builds up the security grid around your call center.
Since many times customer’s voice is taken as authentication over the phone, and no passwords are used, there are cases of fraud or data misappropriation. Voice biometrics will ensure that agents communicate only with genuine customers as it will recognize voice signals, and this will reduce the threat of any fraudulent activities.
4. Rise of Artificial Intelligence:
Most contact center software in the market has embedded artificial intelligence applications that can help agents understand customer intent better. AI-driven technology has the power to understand customer emotion through sentiment analysis, hence it allows agents to prioritize tickets based on urgency requirements.
Artificial intelligence applications in inbound call center solutions offer various self-service options to customers for higher convenience and flexibility. Self-service menus allow clients to redirect themselves to preferred agents or departments for technical assistance. Live chatbots provide support through knowledge databases to save time and provide speedy service for common issues. Artificial intelligence is the future of the contact center industry, and with the help of it, you can improve your contact center services and thus, also enhanced overall work productivity.
5. Read-Time Customer Insights:
Contact centers can perform excellently when powered by a data-driven environment, with a constant stream of real-time customer information. Call center software contains a repository of customer data, hence agents are armed with insights on recent purchases, preferred products, and personal demographic details.
Having access to information enables call agents to deliver a personalized experience, and make relevant recommendations to customers. They can take better decisions, and frame customer interactions for more positive outcomes – a win-win situation for both the organization and the customer!
The call center industry is fiercely competitive, and businesses need to embrace technology to the fullest to stay ahead of rivals. Investing in the right contact center solutions is a smart way to exceed customer expectations and provide a stellar experience to prospects.
After all, if your business does not support loyal customers, they will not hang around waiting, rather just move on to better options in the market. So if you want to run a successful business and outperform your competitors, It’s definitely the right time to move your premise on to a cloud-based contact center solution today.
So remain vigilant, and transition smoothly towards the future by adopting these revolutionary trends in 2023. They will lead to seamless operational efficiency, reduce the workload for staff members, and ultimately lead to increased bottom-line results in all key functional areas!
Naim Vakeel is a content writer who specializes in making the integration and management of business phone systems simple and practical. His content is all about providing clear, actionable advice on how to use VoIP and virtual phone solutions effectively, helping businesses streamline their communication setup.
