Leading customer engagement company and cloud contact centre provider, Content Guru, recently released the findings of a new industry survey designed to explore what Customer Service will look like in 2029. The research was conducted with the help of the UK Contact Centre Forum to examine the top priorities of modern contact centres. What’s more, the study examines how contact centres will evolve by the time the decade is over.
When asked to determine where they’re investing most of their resources and efforts, over half of the contact centres in the survey said that they’re looking into new ways of improving contact channel choices for their clients. In other words, 50% of contact centres believe that investing in an omni-channel strategy for customer service is crucial to the future of their operations. Self-service solutions, web-chat, social media and email have been highlighted as primary channels.
While a focus on new channels is positive, there are some gaps in the contact centre roadmap too, such as a limitation in the number of environments suited to remote workers.
Creating a Flexible Workforce
Although more contact centres are hoping to embrace the omni-channel environment, Content Guru’s report indicates that ambition is being hampered by lack of technology. Only 41% of the contact centres in the UK assessed by the survey say that they can handle all the channels they need on a single UC platform.
Not only that, but only 27% of the contact centres evaluated also have the systems in place for utilising the benefits of home-based agents too. Although 82% of respondents said that they anticipate having some kind of model for remote working in place by 2029, many will need to move faster to remain as operationally effective as possible. This is particularly true in the context of the current COVID-19 environment.
Evaluating which investments in the contact centre need to be a priority in the next one to three years was a valuable component of the latest report. UK contact centres said that putting solutions in place for the integration of multiple channels to be essential (62%). Another major concern was the demand to invest in more intelligent routing systems (55%).
Being Ready to Adapt
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Martin Taylor[/caption]
According to the Deputy CEO of Content Guru, Martin Taylor, the contact centre is evolving at an incredible pace. The organisations that have already made the transition into a cloud-based platform are thriving. These companies are the ones that have the freedom to update and adapt operations at speed. With the help of the cloud, businesses can introduce new ways of working and enhanced channels at a moment’s notice.