Top 5 Call Center Trends for 2023

The evolution of technology has been significant in recent years, and this can also be seen in the contact center industry. Customer experience (CX) and employee experience (EX) are keys to success, and leaders are now focusing on how best to use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to improve their competitiveness.

In recent years, we have seen the rise of omnichannel solutions and virtual assistants. The adoption of new cloud technologies by customer service centers is increasing, as are the expectations of customers to resolve their problems in as few interactions as possible.

Top 5 Call Center Trends for 2023

1) The Omnichannel Contact Center

The pandemic brought a natural evolution of digital transformation. As a result of this, users began to turn to digital channels more than ever to connect with companies and ask for support. People now expect to connect with organizations how they want and when they want.

Customers now do not accept being confined to one touch point or communication channel. They demand the possibility to interact with a company in the way they prefer: social networks, live chats, SMS, email, phone or via WhatsApp.

An omnichannel contact center solution allows agents to access information from every interaction on a single platform, collecting important data and helping them deliver optimized and personalized customer service, as well as a consistent experience across all devices and communication channels.

An omnichannel solution is critical to improving CX and should be considered as a customer engagement strategy if a business wants to provide improved and competitive service.

2) The Call Center in the Cloud

According to Gartner, more than 95% of companies will use Cloud Computing by 2025. This is explained by the many benefits that a cloud call center solution can offer to organizations that seek to optimize agent experiences (AX) and the clients.

The cloud-based solution allows companies to hire agents from different time zones, based in different countries around the world. This not only allows a company to offer 24/7 customer support, but also reduces the number of internal agents, saving costs. In addition, the best talent can be hired regardless of their location.

3) Optimized IVR

Interactive Voice Response (IVR) is still considered the central channel for all contact centers. It is one of the first trends in call center automation and, without a doubt it is here to stay.

The emergence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has had a positive impact on IVR. The combination of both technologies has optimized processes and has given rise to advanced IVR systems such as conversational IVR in more modern call centers. AI introduced speech recognition to IVR, resulting in easy call routing to agents who are best trained, or with specific skills, to respond to each customer’s needs.

Although customer service is now possible across multiple platforms, the phone remains one of the preferred ways to handle high-priority or confidential inquiries.

4) Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Enhanced CX

The power of technology has impacted almost the entire call center space. Innovation has accelerated and new solutions for contact centers have emerged very quickly. AI is one of the latest technologies that has been applied to the call center industry and has brought multiple benefits.

Artificial Intelligence-based applications allow companies to implement intuitive call routing and offer multi-channel support. It has created routing algorithms, saving call center managers hours of coding. AI also helps generate automatic responses based on information that is assimilated over time, creating patterns that can be easily addressed.

Thus, AI allows a company to offer a consistent service to each client, which contributes to improving the brand image and a better user experience.

5) Advanced Self-Service Tools

We all know that the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a much greater need for virtual assistance. With this came the demand from customers to independently solve their problems and find the answers they were looking for. For this reason, self-service tools have become one of the preferred customer service methods for consumers.

In addition to providing answers to the most common questions, self-service tools are also beneficial to agents, as consumers view interactions with an agent as a last resort. This offers the ability to reduce call queues and wait time, while freeing up agents to deal with more complex issues.

Customer self-service tools will continue to increase, and businesses should focus on the availability of enhanced online self-service tools, linking content from Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), articles, video tutorials, and troubleshooting pages to most common customers’ issues.

Now, customers trust call centers to meet their demands more than ever. To do this, the adoption and implementation of new technologies and the trends mentioned above must be seen as strategic initiatives that improve CX, contact center metrics and drive business growth.