Our readers share their predictions about the future of the contact centre industry.
The number of calls will decrease but AHT will increase
Voice calls will reduce and be replaced by online activity, although average call times will increase due to more complex enquires.
With thanks to Fiona
Satisfaction scores and sales will be interlinked
Satisfaction scores will directly impact your sales in the future. For example, who goes on holiday or books a hotel without checking its rating these days?
Investment in staff will be even more essential, as well as a focus on demand via process and policy.
With thanks to Karl
The agents of the future will be a step away from the norm of today
The agents of the future will be very different. Not only will they be Generation Y and therefore bring with them a different set of values and demands, but they will also have new demands put upon them.
The agents of the future will need to be highly skilled, not just on policy and process, but also about how to use and support multiple and more complex contact channels.
I also think that the organisation’s ability to deliver, manage and react to change will become paramount, especially as traditional change teams will not have the skills to deploy new channel capabilities.
With thanks to Simon
It will be about which company is the fastest… Not the biggest
The fastest companies will beat the slower companies, instead of the big companies outweighing the small.
The transfer of knowledge through the workflow in a company is key for great customer service.
With thanks to Martyn
There will be a greater focus on listening to customer feedback
Customer feedback will become even more important through the year, as the competition aims to differentiate from rivals, and especially as we move to multichannel servicing.
The need to provide easy and superior service will be key to retention as customers become less loyal. We need to service customers as they want to be serviced and not how we want them to be.
With thanks to Craig
Voice calls will be phased out as the younger generations come of age
It’s down to generation and evolution. Customer demographics of age 40+ would rather speak to a human, whereas the younger generation want to use the internet and mobile apps.
This generation will grow and eventually become the older generation, therefore phasing out voice calls. This could happen over the next 20 years.
With thanks to Matt
Loyalty will be driven by an emotional connection
Customer loyalty will be driven by a positive emotional connection with your voice operative, rather than by content of service offered.
[Editor’s comment – For more information about building an emotional connection, see these articles: 7 Ways to Build an Emotional Connection With Callers and 7 Ways to Build an Emotional Connection by Email]
With thanks to Hayley
Voice will remain the channel of choice for complex queries
Voice will become a lower volume but higher value interaction – and will remain the best choice for complex queries and up-selling.
Simpler queries will migrate more to webchat and social media.
This will drive a need for higher calibre voice agents.
With thanks to Simon
Agents will expect higher pay as their role becomes more complex
Agents will expect higher pay as their role becomes more complex.
Being multi-skilled and more knowledgeable will become the norm.
With thanks to Sarah
There will be limits imposed on how long callers can be allowed to queue
There will be increasing pressure for regulators to place limits on how long callers can be allowed to queue for.
We are still seeing wait times of over an hour in some organisations.
With thanks to Nik
Webchat and social media will be key methods of initial contact
Live chat and social media will grow into key initial contact methods – and won’t just be seen as a complement to voice.
This will be especially true for social media, where customers know action is taken quicker when a company’s brand is mentioned online.
With thanks to Tom
People will still want to talk to a real person… If they don’t have to wait!
Most people I know prefer to speak to a live agent – regardless of the other channels of offer.
The issue is that waiting times are too long and it is common to spend ages on hold.
With thanks to Alex
Complexity will stop social media from ever taking centre stage
The big issue with conversations outside of voice and webchat is that they cannot easily deal with complexity and special circumstances.
This will help to keep more traditional channels, such as voice, in play until those other channels can handle such complexity.
With thanks to Nik
Social media data will be used to predict customer issues
We will see an increase in digital and social selling – maximising the data we receive from social media to help predict customer behaviour.
We will also see a decrease in calls, and an increase in email, live chat and social media interactions.
With thanks to Marie
It will be increasingly important to know your individual customers
It will be increasingly important to understand your customers’ needs and know your individual customers in order to maintain positive relationships.
With thanks to Pavol
A single query will be resolved through a combination of channels
We won’t see contact volumes switching from one channel to another.
Instead, it will become the norm for a single query to be resolved through a combination of webchat, voice and co-browse.
With thanks to Niek
Contact centres will start using virtual assistants
I think we’ll see contact centres begin to adopt add-on/ middleware solutions like virtual assistants.
With thanks to Philip
More interaction via mobile apps
We will see more interaction via mobile apps.
With thanks to Tina
Users won’t be buying into voice biometrics just yet
I think that users will not buy into voice biometrics for several years yet.
With thanks to Nik
More calls will come in via mobile apps or social media
We’ll see more calls coming into the contact centre via mobile apps, social media or webchat.
The queries will then be resolved through a combination of voice and email.
With thanks to Catherine
Contact centres will make better use of unified communications
Contact centres will leverage unified communications in order to involve the back office and subject matter experts in better resolution times.
With thanks to Nik
Contact centres will view staff as their key investment
There will be greater understanding of the need to invest in your staff – and the direct result this will have on customer service and satisfaction scores.
In our contact centre, we already pay well and have great satisfaction scores.
With thanks to Karl
Conversations will begin on social media and move to the phone
On a daily basis, I am already seeing customers asking questions via social media which require a call-back.
With thanks to Tom
Generation Y will say goodbye to the telephone
There will be an increase of the volumes of webchat.
Generation Y will probably say goodbye to telephone.
With thanks to Pavol
Customers will demand tighter CRM integration
Customers will continue to demand tighter CRM integration – and be less tolerant about having to make an effort and repeat themselves.
With thanks to Nik
There will be a shift back to UK-based contact centres
We will see the start of a transition to more UK-based services, as near-shoring becomes less popular from a consumer’s perspective.
With thanks to Phil
Older generations will never use social media
I don’t think the older generations will ever use social media for customer service.
With thanks to Nik
Video and co-browsing options will increase in popularity
We will most certainly see video and co-browsing increase as smartphone, tablets and laptops become the communication channels of choice.
With thanks to Aidan
Email volumes will increase and response times will decrease
I think that the volume of email contacts will grow – and that we will see improved response times as customers come to expect more from this channel.
With thanks to Michael
There will be more investment in the personal development of agents
Organisations will invest more in their agents, in order to support the growing and complex nature of omni-channel customer journeys.
With thanks to Chris
The company budget will still hold the reins on the quality of service
Company budgets will sadly still dictate the quality of service – and we will continue to try to put a price on good customer service.
With thanks to Simon
Management on a multichannel solution will be harder to find
Management on a multichannel solution will be harder to find, especially if you are using more than one solution at the same time.
Specialisation will be more difficult to build on.
With thanks to Louis
Benchmarking will become increasingly important
I think that appropriate benchmarking is going to be especially important over the coming few years – to ensure pay is competitive amongst all contact centres, not just within a specialist industry.
With thanks to Sarah
Customers will be better informed and more likely to switch companies
More customers will be prepared to switch to competitors at the hands of poor service.
They continue to be better informed, have better access to things like ratings, and are able to shop on service, not just price.
With thanks to Nik
Contact centres will focus more on staff training and retention
Businesses will start investing in training and keeping their multi-skilled agents – reducing churn and up-skilling to properly manage omni-channel.
With thanks to Emma
There will be a growth in homeworkers to support 24/7 demand
There will be a significant growth in homeworkers to support the 24/7 service culture and subsequent service demands.
With thanks to Michael
Omni-channel analytics will be vital to the contact centre
Omni-channel analytics will become increasingly vital.
With thanks to Nik
We will see an increase in the use of the NetEasy Score
We will see a rise in the use of the NetEasy Score as a measure of how easy a customer feels your company is to do business with.
With thanks to Stewart
Customer Effort will be the best measure of loyalty
Customer Effort will continue to gain traction as the best measure of customer sentiment and loyalty.
Interest in the NetPromoter Score will continue to grow but will eventually tail off.
With thanks to Nik
The role of the agent will bend more towards self-service support
Eventually, there will be more agents working in the industry whose prime role is to support customers using self-service (via web, social media and mobile apps), than agents who share actual product knowledge.
With thanks to Gavin
Front-line staff will need to be equipped with the latest tools
Front-line staff will have to keep pace with the complexity of transactions and will have to be equipped with the new tools and skills to keep up with customer expectations.
With thanks to Pavol
More agents will be needed to deal with problems faster
Regardless of the channel used, unless there is an agent there to deal with it there and then, you will not get satisfactory customer service.
Contact centres will need to increase the number of agents they have in order to deal with questions and problems faster.
With thanks to Alex
What do you think 2015 and beyond holds for the contact centre industry?
Author: Megan Jones
Published On: 28th Jan 2015 - Last modified: 11th Aug 2022
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