12 Contact Center Predictions For 2019 And Beyond

The increase in digitization is forcing a large number of contact centers to adapt to this social trend through the integration of new technologies in their organizations. But how will the customer service centers evolve in the coming years according to the experts?

12 Contact Center Predictions For 2019 And Beyond

1) The Importance Of Contact Centers Will Be Recognized

A large number of contact center teams are preparing to show the importance of the call center for organizations; this is due to the growing popularity of digital interactions. The biggest obstacles that almost all contact centers will have to overcome will be the management of interactions with multiple clients through a great diversity of channels, at the same time offering a perfect experience for each client.

2) Companies Should Review Their Interactions With Customers In Accordance With The New Compliance Standards

Organizations will have to modify their practices due to the introduction of new compliance standards such as the General Data Protection Regulation. In 2019, the recording of calls could be an integral part of the resolution of customer conflicts and the management of quality in the customer’s journey.

3) The Use Of Voice Analysis Will Increase In The Call Centers

Increasingly, companies are looking for new ways to increase their customers’ experience. According to a NewVoiceMedia survey, 70% of users are more loyal to an organization that offers excellent customer service, and 40% of them even claimed to be willing to spend more. These results could lead contact centers to invest more in voice analysis, since it can provide important data such as the most common reasons customers call and what are the most frequent complaints. This type of technology can also scan individual calls for analysis, detect recurring trends and apply other processes to improve quality assurance.

4) Interaction Analysis And Robotics Could Be Combined

Efficiency, scalability and dynamic customer service will be maintained at a high level in all types of channels once robotics and interaction analysis are used. Call centers will automate daily and laborious tasks through bots, generating more time for agents to offer better customer service. On the other hand, interaction analysis will also help companies to discover detailed information about the behavior of their customers. This should improve customer service, as well as decrease customer effort, by providing a better understanding of the Voice of the Customer (VoC).

5) The Cloud Will Be Used In More Contact Centers

The contact centers now face two key challenges. First, the volume of digital interaction is increasing. Second, the customer experience has never been so important to make a difference with respect to its competitors. A survey conducted by West Unified Communications revealed that 88% of call center professionals believe that digital interaction will eclipse the voice by 2020. If this prediction becomes reality, the adoption of the cloud will increase, since it has a multi-channel functionality and multiple future proof capabilities.

6) Contact Centers In The Cloud And Omnichannel Will Be Key

According to the research, more than 50% of call centers that do not use technology in the cloud have expressed that they will start using it by the end of 2020. Likewise, nowadays, clients are much more likely to use different communication channels (networks social, messaging applications, etc.); however, they share a common standard: to offer a satisfactory customer service. This is why the cloud is being used by a growing number of organizations, as it allows them to adopt the omnichannel approach desired for customer service, by integrating skill-based routing with the cloud. This combination will maintain minimum costs and the highest possible levels of customer service.

7) Integration Solutions Will Be A Priority For Call Centers

Increasingly, more organizations will choose to adopt a more integrated approach to customer service, which means that companies will have a platform that will have the ability to handle everything they need through self-service and omnichannel.

8) WebRTC Will Become The Most Sought Tool By Contact Centers

Many experts believe that the use of WebRTC in call centers will increase. WebRTC is now available in standard browsers and applications, so when customers use a company’s website, they expect to be able to effortlessly switch between multiple platforms, such as chat, voice, video, and file sharing. In addition, WebRTC will provide useful information, as it will allow agents to see first-hand contextual information about their clients’ trips on their websites.

9) The Contact Centers Must Be Aligned With The Expectations Of The Customers

In 2019, we expect to see an increase in customer demands once technologies such as WebRTC are installed, so call centers will begin to feel the pressure to manage their queues more efficiently. To do this, contact centers must be able to easily switch agents between different sessions of social networks. This approach has proven to be popular among many call centers, once the ACD call merge model opens the way to the Automated Session Distributor‘s media session combination model, which allows several different media sessions (voice, email, chat, video and SMS) interconnect with each other easily.

10) Consultation In Call Centers Will Change Thanks To Automation And Self-service

More and more customers will use self-service or automated solutions to solve minor or simple problems if the digitalization continues to show signs of progression in the coming years. On the other hand, the agents of the center of attention to the client will still have to take charge of the most complicated managements. Having to deal with difficult queries can mean that more call centers resort to the implementation of technologies that will allow them to analyze a greater volume of interactions and quickly identify emerging problems.

11) Self-service And Voice Recognition Will Be More Popular

New speech recognition technologies have stimulated interest in digital self-service and artificial intelligence. Most of us are increasingly familiar with chatbots. Therefore, many customers feel more comfortable and, sometimes, even prefer to interact with bots when they call a call center.

12) Changes In The Market Will Revolutionize The Customer Experience

Digital natives are forcing traditional organizations to question their methods. Today, customers have incredibly high expectations based on how they want to interact with organizations. The first point of contact for most people when it comes to interacting with any organization is through the phone and / or applications. Traditional companies must provide their customers with a high quality, seamless experience in various channels to stay ahead of the curve.