2025 Outlook for Call Centers: Trends to Watch

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Table of contents

1. Cloud-based contact center software offerings continue to grow

Cloud-based contact center systems have a great deal of value to contact centers that need to upgrade, update, or make use of modern tools. Recent years have produced many exciting advancements and trends in the call center industry, prompting many companies to update their systems and best make use of modern solutions. One of the easiest and most effective ways to integrate cloud-based contact center software is through a Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) model. The current need for many contact centers to make the shift to cloud-based contact center solutions is driving major growth in the CCaaS market, and that growth is projected to continue growing in the coming year.

2. Omnichannel offerings continue to rise

The current gold standard of contact center customer service is omnichannel communication. Not only should you provide a wide variety of channels for your customers to engage with (everything from phone and text to online chat and social media) but each channel should be interconnected to allow customers to start a conversation on one channel before seamlessly picking up where they left off on another. Omnichannel customer service is no longer a “nice-to-have” feature for contact centers, but an essential experience that most customers have come to expect, which points toward higher levels of adoption and integration of omnichannel offerings in the coming year and beyond.

3. Wide adoption of self-service contact center options

Even before online shopping, modern customers have long been accustomed to helping themselves, with automated checkouts at grocery stores, gas stations, ATMs, and other self-service options. In many customers’ minds, it makes more sense to choose some form of self-service tool for a simpler issue, rather than initiate a formal conversation through an unnecessary call or interaction. By providing self-service options like natural language Interact Voice Response (IVR) systems and chatbots, as well as FAQs and user-generated forums, you can give your customers a convenient source of answers to common, easy-fix problems.

In turn, these self-service options also benefit agents by decreasing the volume of calls regarding routine inquiries, allowing agents to put more time and focus on issues that require a finer, more skilled touch. This makes better use of each agent’s time, making your team’s efforts more efficient and cost-effective.

Because self-service contact center options are highly beneficial, both for customers and for the contact centers themselves, demand for them has increased greatly, with 9 out of 10 contact centers reporting plans to invest further into self service options in the next few years, according to a report from Deloitte Digital.

4. AI taking center stage in the CX world

No longer a novelty, AI has cemented itself as a valuable tool for crafting excellent customer experiences and is expected to continue playing a major role in the world of CX. Contact center future trends are projected to have a decent helping of AI.

Conversational AI chatbots

The huge advancements in recent years in natural language processing (NLP) have massively improved the abilities of chatbots. Chatbots are not a new tool by any means, but the chatbots of the past were little more than specialized collections of “if-then” statements — software that provides prewritten answers in response to queries that contain certain words or phrases. As such, there was a limit to just how natural and conversational a “conversation” with these chatbots could be. Developers of these chatbots would need to anticipate the questions users might ask, and write any answers the chatbot could give ahead of time.

Over the past few years, however, the explosion of large language models (LLMs), AI, machine learning, and NLP has allowed modern chatbots to create much more natural, relevant, and sophisticated responses to a wider variety of questions. For simpler problems, many customers even find a quality chatbot to be a more convenient option to a formal conversation with a human in cases where the latter isn’t necessary. Because of their convenience, versatility, and ease of use, AI chatbots are expected to continue growing in the CX industry, with a Botco survey showing a majority of contact centers currently using them in some fashion, and nearly a third of those who don’t currently use them report that they plan on implementing them soon.

Generative AI widely improves agent productivity

AI has useful applications for cultivating better customer experiences, but it can also provide useful tools to agents as well. Through NLP and AI-powered speech analytics, contact centers can actively monitor and transcribe conversations, capturing both the actual content of the conversation as well as the tone and sentiment expressed. With customer consent, these contact center technology trends can make very useful tools.

One major benefit of this tech is that, through generative AI, agents can receive live coaching during conversations. Detecting patterns in the conversation, AI agent assist offers in-the-moment guidance to agents, allowing them to adjust their approach to the conversation for an increased success rate.

Another CX-related application of generative AI is automated call summarization. Post-call documentation can be a major time-suck, forcing agents to quickly switch back and forth between different types of tasks between calls and taking up valuable time and energy. With a detailed understanding of the call, AI can produce a full summary of the call instantly, accomplishing the task of documenting the interaction and updating the customer’s profile in the CRM with minimal effort. This allows agents to better focus on what they do best, reducing their mental burden and boosting their overall productivity.

5. Remote & hybrid workforces aren’t going anywhere

Remote work was a sudden and unexpected shift for many people back in 2020, but this adjustment quickly opened many people’s eyes to the economic and personal benefits that the work-from-home model has to offer. Even setting the employee work-life balance benefits aside, remote and hybrid options can be a huge benefit to businesses that have the opportunity to do so — wider talent pools, reduced operational costs, and higher retention rates, just to name a few.

There has been a lot of buzz in the past year about return-to-office orders, with a handful of large corporations like Amazon notably requiring their once-remote employees to start returning to in-person work. Many have been lamenting that these return-to-office orders from prominent companies were the beginning of the end for the remote jobs they counted on.

Though certain industries and niches are more productive or feasible in person, the remote and hybrid work models are alive and well for the call center industry, showing a positive 2025 outlook for call centers with remote work programs. A full 69% of contact centers still had remote work programs as of Spring 2023, according to a report conducted by Deloitte Digital. The same report also shows that 73% of contact centers plan on having a remote work program within the next two years, showing that, if anything, remote and hybrid work are projected to grow in the CX industry in 2025.

6. Emphasis on data security and privacy

Given the vast amounts of customer information that contact centers handle on a daily basis, data security and customer privacy need to be a top priority. Implicit in the access to potentially sensitive or identifying information is the obligation to use that information responsibly. This is a responsibility the call center industry has always been beholden to. However, with the increased use of AI in contact centers, businesses have added responsibility for data security, and there has been renewed public interest in the issue of customer privacy.

In order to make use of tech that records, analyzes, and transcribes customer conversations, customers need to be adequately informed and give their consent. As customers become more aware of their data use and new regulations are put in place, it becomes all the more important for contact centers to be more transparent about how customer data is being used and to be more stringent about compliance with any and all regulations.

How ROI CX Solutions can help you in 2025

ROI CX Solutions is a leading provider of contact center outsourcing with years of experience and up-to-date expertise. We provide you with a well-trained, dedicated outsourced team with a firm grasp on current tech, best practices, and trends in the call center industry.

Start 2025 off right and take advantage of our resources and insights today! Get a free quote from an ROI CX representative and learn how we can make a difference in your customer experience!