By Jeff Koyen
Contact centers are undergoing a rewrite. No longer seen as necessary evils, they’re being recognized as nerve centers of the customer experience, solving customers’ most immediate problems and managing their most personal brand interactions. What’s driving the transformation? Changing customer expectations and a suite of AI- and cloud-powered innovations ready to keep up.
Voice calls still dominate customer service—in a survey of 3,000 consumers conducted by BT and Cisco, 74% of respondents said they phoned a contact center last year.
But today’s customer also expects personalized, end-to-end solutions that suit the moment, their device, even their mood. More and more, interactions are held on digital channels, often across multiple platforms. In fact, according to BT and Cisco’s survey, 63% of consumers believe they should be able to switch between chat, voice and video calls seamlessly.
“Contact centers are increasingly becoming value creators,” says Dr. Nicola Millard, principal partner at BT.
Keep reading for insights on how modern contact centers can create superior, personalized experiences for both customers and the agents who serve them, with expert commentary from Millard and BT’s Andrew Small, managing director of global portfolio, and Riccy Sidoli, general manager of customer relationship management.
Cutting-edge contact centers don’t just answer questions; they understand customer behavior on a macro scale and anticipate customer needs on the micro.
Largely responsible for these vital new capabilities are two technologies in particular: artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud-based computing.
What, exactly, do customers expect when they contact a brand? “They want immediacy,” says Small. “Whether speech or messaging or anything else, they want to be able to keep the conversation going” on the channel that suits their needs.
Here are four examples of how AI- and cloud-powered contact centers are making that possible:
“Agents are critical in building brands—and they know that,” says Millard. Yet service agents face significant barriers to delivering their best work and, therefore, an exceptional brand experience.
According to BT and Cisco’s survey, roughly half of agents believe customers are kept waiting too long (48%); that they spend too much time trying to find relevant information (52%); and that it takes too long to identify and verify customers (46%).
Here’s how AI- and cloud-driven innovations are improving agents’ experiences while helping them close the service delivery gap:
Especially for global organizations, each point of contact with a customer is an opportunity to create a good impression. Customer service, then, must be seen as more than putting out fires as quickly as possible; contact centers are touchpoints for brand-building.
“The opportunity is there to provide more personalized service to your customers that gets them more engaged and sticky with your brand,” says Sidoli. That's effectively how the big success stories have done it.”
To explain how an end-to-end contact center ecosystem can support this, Sidoli and his colleagues offer these four takeaways:
Visit BT.com for more information on how to shape your customers' experience to deliver a brilliant outcome, and to find out how our contact center solutions connect everything.
