The Shape of the Contact Centre Industry in 2020 and Beyond

Enghouse Interactive shares three key industry predictions for 2020 and beyond, each of which were discussed in a recent Call Centre Helper webinar.

What will the contact centre look like in 2020 and beyond? This was the question posed in a recent webinar hosted by Call Centre Helper along with panellists Dr Nicola Millard, Customer Experience Futurologist at BT Global Services, and Jeremy Payne, VP of Marketing at Enghouse Interactive.

The webinar builds a picture of how the contact centre will look in the future along with research and strategies to help you make the best decisions for your customer experience. Some of the key takeaways include:

The Phone Will Still Be a Key Part of Digital Strategy

Digital channels are here to stay and continue to grow with channels such as live chat and apps building in popularity. However, the biggest shift will be the change for the agents.

As their role becomes a more complex or emotive function, the average handle time will lengthen by 40%.

Chatbots Have Appeal – But You Need to Get the Balance Right

Automation within the contact centre is inevitable, but you need to make sure that you get the right balance between agents and bots when building your customer journey.

In the webinar, Jeremy Payne takes you through a real example of a customer journey and the trigger points that push it through the different escalation paths, whether these are automated or human.

Take a Modular Approach – One Step at a Time!

In an ever-changing competitive environment, your contact centre will need to constantly evolve and adapt with you. As with any contact centre, there is an element of nervousness when moving to new technology for your mission-critical functions.

So, focus on optimising the customer journey by adding new functionality as and when required. This could be anything from new channels, bots, analytical tools or integrating into new environments such as UC, or deployment methods including cloud or on-premise.

Make sure you work with a vendor that can take on that journey, adapt with you and migrate seamlessly with reduced risk and friction.

One thing to remember is do not always listen to the hype. Think about what is right for your business and be ready to adapt and trial new strategies. The contact centre is changing but the basics remain the same: the customer is still the most important thing.

Author: Robyn Coppell