4 Contact Center Trends that are Transforming the Industry in 2018

Outsource contact centers have undergone significant changes over the past five years, with innovations in technology allowing outsourced customer service representatives to offer a superior customer experience.

The outsourced call center space is a significant and growing opportunity for both small and enterprise companies who are looking to improve their customer experience (CX) - and most companies should be. The customer experience must be executed perfectly or companies will see their customers, and potential customers, moving on to their competitors. 

Outsourcing your call center can give your company access to the latest technology, excellent customer service representatives and state-of-the-art consumer data, more cost-effectively than implementing a similar offering in-house.

That’s not even considering the deep knowledge and experience of customer service that comes with a respected call center solution in Canada. Contact center outsourcing should be a source of new ideas and program improvements, ever-refining processes and reducing customer effort.

Advantage Communications is leading the way in contact center innovation. As a leader in the evolution of the contact center, we have expertise in next generation, smart technology that improves the customer experience.

Here are four call center trends that are transforming the industry, and are a part of our PoweredUp customer experience solutions.

1 - Artificial intelligence

It is cited that call center artificial intelligence (AI) software will be the most disruptive force in technology over the coming decade, with many companies embracing it to get a competitive edge. AI is currently being applied and utilized across many sectors, and is particularly exciting for customer service at the moment due to two reasons: machine learning and natural language processing.

Both machine learning and natural language processing are now being used in customer service to help solve problems and decrease customer effort. Both of these new technologies can allow the customer to seek help on their preferred channel, cut down on wait times, collect data to solve future problems, reduce customer effort by anticipating what they need before they need it, and much more.

2 - Chatbots

While chatbots are a specific type of artificial intelligence, they certainly deserve their own mention in this blog. A chatbot is a form of AI that consumers can talk to through either a chat window on a website, an app, or over the phone by voice. It has the capability to answer questions via a back-and-forth dialogue in a natural language that resembles that of a human representative.

You’ve probably seen a chatbot before. A large portion of businesses now have chatbot windows popping up on every page of their website. Companies that haven’t implemented chatbots yet, are probably losing out to those which have. A chatbot can provide customer service, present product recommendations, provide advice on how to deal with a faulty product or service, or they can direct consumers to an appropriate contact centre representative to help them further. All of these cut down on customer effort and offer a more timely and accurate service to your customers.

3 - Advanced data analytics

The advancement of data analytics and real-time data has allowed customer service representatives to access customer-specific data with a mere click of a button. No longer do agents have to speak to a supervisor to gain the knowledge of how to deal with a particular problem. A data analytics tool can use channels such as phone calls, screen recordings, chats, SMS messages and more, to learn additional data on each individual customer they are serving.

This automated process cuts out the manual tracking and monitoring of the past, and puts it into one central database that is easily accessible for customer service representatives. Agents can simply search their user interface and find real-time updates on the customer experience and how best to solve a particular problem.

4 - Omni-channel approach

Decreasing customer effort is a huge part of a satisfactory customer experience in 2018, and that means being able to communicate with your customers through all digital channels. If a customer, or a potential customer, can’t communicate with you on your phone, they’re unlikely to load up their computer just to ask you a question, they will simply move on to the next company who does offer this. A customer journey doesn’t always stay on one channel, and its now increasingly common to unify the customer experience across channels.

Modern consumers are busy, whether it’s long working hours, commuting, travelling or simply spending time with their family, your customers want to communicate during a time that’s convenient for them - not work around your schedule. They expect minimal custom effort, 24/7 communication and an instant resolution.

While technologies like AI might seem futuristic, complex or even expensive to implement - our solutions are customizable, ready to implement and cost effective.

Let’s start a conversation to find out how we can help improve your customer experience and innovate your call center solution.