If you're involved in the contact centre industry, or you’re a business with a call centre, then there's a good chance you've heard of Customer Contact Week. The CCW event has been one of the biggest conferences in the contact centre community for nearly 20 years, and it's still introducing innovation to companies from around the world today. I was lucky enough to attend the conference in Las Vegas myself this year and talk to some of the people showcasing their exciting new products on the floor.
One of the brands I caught up with was 8x8 - the industry leader in global cloud communication solutions. I spoke to 8x8's Solutions Consultant for Customer Experience (CX), Alton Harewood, who shared with me his thoughts about the evolution of the contact centre, and 8x8's X Series portfolio.
Tell Us A Little Bit About You
When it comes to talking about the evolution of the contact centre and the growing popularity of customer experience solutions, there are few experts better suited to provide insight than Alton Harewood. He's spent more than thirty years in the contact centre space, originally on a customer service desk for a mail order company. He actually worked his way up all the way from agent to manager, before moving into the role of analyst and "tech" support.
"I was very fortunate when I wanted to move to Canada, that the company I worked with at the time transferred me and made me a project manager. I learned so much in that role, which has helped me to become a better consultant, salesperson, and channel management expert today."
"Last year, I talked to 8x8 about their focus on the rejuvenation of the cloud contact centre, and I was thrilled to join their solutions consulting team."
As part of the solutions consulting team, Alton now deals with the major issues that customers face every day, looking at what 8x8 can do to fix their problems and make customer experience more innovative for everyone involved.
How Would You Say the Contact Centre Has Evolved Recently?
With so much experience in the history of contact centres, I was keen to hear more about what Alton saw as the major evolutions in the industry during the past few years. I asked him what he considered to be the most important trends affecting users today, and he told me that you have to think about the people who are using technology today to answer that question.
"We've got the millennials now - a very mature group with expectations of immediacy, clarity, and a strong consumer interface. All these critical elements are to be treated as part of your product DNA when this demographic starts working in the contact centre too."
Alton noted that a lot of companies are also struggling with the fact that they've got old legacy systems combined with new technology.
"They've got legacy boxes on their site, and they're trying to evolve at the same time with speech analytics and customer intent. That's one of the biggest things that has changed the trends in contact centres in recent years - the drive to get ahead of the customer and understand what they want before they come to you."
Alton noted that users in the contact centre environment are extremely intelligent these days and that they expect more than ever from the tech they embrace. "Contact centres were historically very disparate systems, but now users expect them to be more diverse, dynamic, and immersive."
