What Are The Main Challenges Facing Call Centers In 2022?

The contact center sector has been put to the test by COVID-19. The pandemic has not only increased the number of calls due to the growing number of customers using digital as their primary means of interacting with a business, but there has also been a significant increase in the rate of complex calls and the need for climb them.

According to a 2020 Harvard Business Review study, during the pandemic, these types of calls increased by 50%. In addition to this increase, agents had to face the adoption of new work modalities: remote and hybrid. The situation was not better for consumers who, according to an NBC survey, 75% of them indicated that customer service deteriorated during the pandemic, while 55% of callers did not get their queries resolved.

Fortunately, call center technology is rapidly evolving to address many of these challenges and can be deployed to address many of the key concerns contact centers have not only encountered in the past, but will face in 2022 and beyond.

What Are The Main Challenges Facing Call Centers In 2022?

Challenge #1: Reduce Call Wait Times

Before the pandemic, consumers were already moving to digital channels as the primary means of interacting with a business. COVID-19 has only fueled this trend in a matter of months, as most users are now digital-first in the way they interact with brands. When customers went digital, call center call volume invariably increased, as people were confused to navigate this new normal. And as complex calls have increased, wait times have done the same.

The solution? Many companies have adopted callbacks as a way to reduce waiting times. Reminder scheduling has been very popular with customers and has helped to progressively eliminate this “black spot” in the customer experience (CX). For this reason, it is convenient to inform users of how much waiting time there is, if they want to be called back and give them the option of when they want to receive it.

Challenge #2: Continue Operations Remotely

During the pandemic companies saw wait times increase by 34%, according to Harvard Business Review. Remote work as a method of dealing with future instability and unpredictability of the modern world will continue to grow in importance, as there are many other emerging threats to global stability beyond pandemics, such as extreme weather conditions, political instability, and economic disparities. Remote operations allow companies to prepare for the unexpected by providing more flexible staffing models.

Call centers need to look to a cloud-based infrastructure to be able to pivot and scale where and when needed depending on the situation.

Challenge #3: Agent Recruitment and Retention

Employee attrition tops the list of contact center challenges in 2022. Contact centers in particular have been affected by this trend. When a worker is lost, so is all the knowledge, experience, time and financial resources devoted to training and supporting them in their career. In fact, Glassdoor estimates that it can take up to 8 months before an agent is ready to be fully productive.

In this sense, call centers can implement virtual agents to manage the simplest queries. Also, chatbots have high success rates and can work 7/24/365.

To encourage agent retention, provide recognition and more competitive compensation and benefits, it will help improve their well being in the company.

Challenge #4: Low Customer Satisfaction

When customers are unhappy, it can hurt an organization’s bottom line, because if they don’t solve their problem on the first try, it snowballs future calls. 30% of a call center’s call volume is callbacks from previous unresolved issues, according to SQM.

An effective tool for dealing with customer issues before they become a real person is interactive voice response (IVR) software. This allows you to provide a more personal experience to users from the first moment and ensure that they are directed to the right agent based on their needs.

Looking Forward

Many traditional call center problems, most of which have been accelerated and magnified due to the COVID-19 pandemic, can be solved with advanced technology solutions. A cloud-based infrastructure allows agents to work where conditions demand, while advanced technology assisted by Artificial Intelligence (AI), such as chatbots and intelligent call routing, can complement the live team.