5 Contact Center Trends to Watch for in 2022
The recent pandemic has changed how businesses worldwide operate, including contact centers. They’ve had to respond swiftly to client needs by embracing new technology and business tactics. This includes staying current on the latest contact center trends to keep up with the competition and provide better customer experiences.
Let’s look at some of the contact center industry’s top trends this year.
Top Contact Center Trends in 2022
1. Shift to a Hybrid Workforce Model
Remote work continues to be popular among businesses, particularly contact centers. In this work model, employees have the flexibility of working either from home or the office. One recent study shows that work-from-home increases productivity by 13%.
Furthermore, remote working arrangements can also save companies money and resources. They don’t have to spend as much on rent, utilities, and other office or facility expenses to accommodate agents.
A productive contact agent results in a higher customer satisfaction rate as they would solve queries more effectively. You can expect more organizations to shift to remotely operated contact centers this year and in the near future.
2. Cloud-Based Contact Center Tools
Due to the growing popularity of remote working arrangements, cloud-based services have also been one of the top contact center trends this year. Moving to the cloud allows contact agents to access the center’s resources, such as customer information and call handling software, regardless of location.
Moreover, a contact center that uses cloud-based services would be able to scale the operations when necessary, such as when one of their client businesses is in peak season and anticipating higher inbound call volumes.
3. Omnichannel Communication
It’s no longer enough for a company to only be available through a telephone number in this day and age. Having a contact center open multiple communication channels makes the business more accessible to customers, as each person can have their preferred ways of contacting them.
Besides maintaining a conventional call center, contact centers now also accommodate customers through channels such as:
- Text messaging
- SMS apps
- Live chat
- Social media accounts
- Chatbots
4. Improved Analytics Implementation
To enhance the customer’s experience when interacting with agents, contact centers now invest more time and resources in gathering data analytics metrics compared to previous years. Metrics such as resolution rates, response times, routing, and handling times give the contact center insights on how to improve their agents’ performance and the center’s overall workflow.
Data analytics also allows for a deeper understanding of the types of queries the contact center receives and lets them anticipate future customer interactions. For instance, they can better reroute certain calls to more qualified agents to handle the concern.
5. Integration of Artificial Intelligence in Operations
Contact centers have also begun to utilize more AI programs in various aspects of their services. For instance, automation tools such as Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and call routing software lets call centers direct inbound calls to contact agents according to availability, specializations, departments, and other factors. This allows calls to be accommodated and resolved faster than if the agents had to redirect calls manually.
Chatbots are another AI tool used by contact centers to reduce the number of simpler, more redundant calls handled by the agents. Chatbots can hold conversations with customers and help them resolve simpler issues so that human agents can deal with more complex inquiries. The reduced call volume also puts less strain on workers.
Artificial intelligence in call centers is also used for gathering analytics metrics. They save the contact center agents from having to measure these metrics themselves. Moreover, artificial intelligence software can also review analytics insights, such as finding discrepancies or patterns that a human agent might easily miss.
We Adapt to Give You Better Services
ROI CX Solutions is committed to staying updated on the latest contact center trends so we can continuously implement higher standards in nearshore and offshore call center solutions for our clients. You can browse the rest of our website if you’d like to learn more about our extensive inbound, outbound, and other customer support services. You can also request a free quote online or call us at (877) 769-1547 if you have other inquiries.
