In 2022, customer messaging gained ground, voice automation garnered more excitement, and the boundaryless contact center grew stronger.
These trends will continue to make headway in 2023. However, others will also make their presence felt as customer experience software advances, AI matures, and a recession looms.
Against this backdrop, Mike Burkland, Chairman & CEO of Five9, and Sheila McGee-Smith, President & Principal Analyst at McGee-Smith Analytics, share their top five CX predictions for 2023.
1. CCaaS Adoption By Large Enterprises Will Accelerate
In recent years, legacy contact center vendors have slowed their on-premises innovation efforts, bidding to move customers to the cloud.
However, in 2022, these vendors made this aim much more explicit. As McGee-Smith notes:
“Brands came out and said: “I’m not going to put any innovation on this [legacy solution]. I’m going to kill this very soon, or – as a business – I’m going to implode.”
Genesys became the latest brand to make such an announcement, funnelling all its funds into its public cloud solution while ditching its hybrid cloud platform and legacy innovation.
These moves are providing the catalyst for CCaaS adoption in large enterprises. Those that sat on the fence, viewing the cloud as a future consideration, are now moving much more rapidly.
In addition, many of the more conventional contact centers, which thought their legacy voice infrastructure would continue to serve them, now understand that this is perhaps not the case.
Recognizing this trend, Burkland states:
“This is a market that has evolved over the last several years, but we’ve now reached an inflection point.”
Burkland also notes three other movements in the market that will accelerate the adoption of CCaaS in large enterprises this year. These are:
- The strategic importance of customer experience is a central driver for enterprises that want to innovate quickly.
- The growing maturity of CCaaS solutions, which deliver the scalability, reliability, and breadth of functionalities to replace legacy infrastructure.
- The possible AI and automation ROI, as businesses realize a significant labor arbitrage opportunity for which cloud is the gateway.
“We are seeing a very dramatic moment as we head into 2023,” concludes McGee-Smith.
2. AI Hype Is Over. Now It’s Real
Consider the recent excitement around ChatGPT3 across the CX space. That speaks to the notion that “the hype is over.” Intelligent AI applications are out there, and the industry is ready to embrace AI and learn about what is coming next.
Indeed, contact center leaders are no longer saying: “That’s not for us. That’s far in the future.” Instead, they say: “Where are the best places for me to apply that in the short-term?”
Making this point, McGee-Smith highlights many emerging AI use cases.
"We're seeing brands implement AI on the front end, with conversational AI. You can do it in the middle of the call with agent-assist… Then, on the back end, it's post-call automation and data management, ensuring it flows where it's supposed to.
“So, yes, the hype is over. Now it’s about how. What is right for my business?”
Of course, as Burkland stresses, AI is still in its early stages. "There is an evolution, and it will go deeper over the coming years."
Yet, looking into the crystal ball, Burkland adds:
"Instead of automating those routine, repeatable interactions – which are the lowest-hanging fruit for automation – we will leverage additional AI solutions, and you'll see things like GPT3 and other large language models that will change the game. It'll be a new world."
An excellent example is that GPT4 is almost ready, and GPT5 is already on course.
Just like there was server to cloud, cloud to public cloud, AI is the next frontier of software as it keeps moving forward.
3. Contact Center Agents Play a More Strategic Role in CX
Does the following narrative sound familiar? As contact centers automate more tasks, agents can focus on high-value interactions, not the mundane repeat calls.
Many vendors have banged this drum, and this trend is happening – in the sense that agents are handling more complex conversations and taking on a more consultative role.
Yet, as the agent role evolves, so must their experience. After all, transactional contacts provided teams with the opportunity to take a breather. Without this, added complexity can lead to burnout.
Here is where the concept of collaborative intelligence gains momentum. As Burkland says:
“The collaborative intelligence concept revolves around helping agents appear more knowledgeable across new disciplines. As we leverage new technologies – like WEM – that allows agents to appreciate what a great customer experience really is and what it takes to deliver that in a more consultative, high-value way.”
Such a concept may seem distant for contact centers that have invested in sophisticated routing technologies to send contacts to agents for specific reasons that align with their training.