For years, many businesses have had a laissez-faire attitude to contact centres. Why? Because their profitability was not obvious or easily quantifiable. In fact, there was often the misperception of customer service as purely a cost centre.
However, peel back the lid just a little, and it’s clear such logic does not ring true at all. During the pandemic, many realised this, but often too late.
As such, attitudes towards contact centres are changing, and - by 2030 - the role of the contact centre within many organizations will look very different…
The Contact Centre of Today: A Respected Last-Line of Defence
With their physical front doors locked shut, many forward-thinking organizations embraced the idea that their new virtual front door was the contact centre.
Making this point during his keynote at Calabrio Customer Connect 2022, Tom Goodmanson, CEO of Calabrio, said:
Those that made that change thrived, those that continued to treat the contact centre as before, and failed to embrace it as the only way to truly interact with customers, struggled.
Indeed, contact centres often became the defining factor in making or breaking a brand’s reputation.
As such, the contact centre stepped into the realm of being the brand guardian, the last line of a business’s defence.
“The first line of defence is a great sales experience, and the second line of defence is a great product,” says Goodmanson. “Yet, when one of those isn’t quite up to snuff, and customer expectations are high, it is likely up to the contact centre to take care of business.”
“Whether reactively or proactively, it must be first-rate.”
Moreover, almost 100 percent of the consumers that took part in reported that contact centre interactions impact their brand loyalty.
The result? A new vision for the contact centre is likely to take shape before 2030.
Building Towards the Contact Centre of 2030 May Be an Uphill Task for Some
Unfortunately, many contact centres are currently unprepared for this role as a brand guardian after years of low budgets, understaffing, and reactively being informed of brand initiatives.
Moreover, most lack the agility and ability to change. Such a problem extends beyond the contact centre, as Goodmanson alluded to:
When service experiences are poor, this is likely because the business could not pivot when something unforeseen happened – such as a global pandemic. The result? Damage to brand reputation and bottom lines.
Another unfortunate trend is that contact centres have invested in the wrong technologies to solve their problems. Customers being pushed from one virtual queue to another is a symptom of this.
Then, when customers finally reach an agent, they must repeat the information they’ve already put into the system. Instantly starting the interaction on a negative footing rather than neutral ground. Sound familiar?
“All these investments, made to pull companies closer to their customers, ended up pushing them away,” added Goodmanson. “It then becomes incredibly expensive to repair the bad experience, and there are many tough choices that business must make.”
“Meanwhile, agents suffer the fury of customers fed-up with the poor pre-contact journey, creating a vicious cycle.”