5 Digital Technologies Transforming Contact Center Customer Service

by John F. Day II, Esq. Utilities Technology

Thanks to advanced digital technologies, companies now find themselves in a position to truly transform the contact center customer service experience.

From a host of stunning new capabilities driven by AI to a migration to cloud-based services, and from an overhaul in both internal and customer-facing communication to message error removal technology, it’s an exciting, unprecedented period for contact centers.

Here are five areas in particular in which technology is already transforming how work gets done.

1. Unified communication

Contact centers traditionally have been separate from the main business of companies, which generates problems with contact center customer service performance. For instance, agents may find it difficult to know which department or subject matter specialist to route customer calls to within the company.

Unified communication technology consolidates the way the contact center and main business correspond with each other. It empowers agents to resolve customer queries faster with features like a common directory, employee availability visibility, and more efficient communication channels. It also aligns communication technology, including the interface used by contact center agents and employees from across the business.

2. Artificial intelligence applications

Advances in AI technology continue to gather pace. Now, contact centers benefit from more complex use applications. This includes superior interactive voice response, chatbots to handle specific types of customer queries, and agent-assisted AI to help human agents.

Another powerful AI-powered capability is sentiment analysis. Chatbots and voice agents capture a great deal of customer data, which can be aggregated by a data analytics processor for insights into general customer sentiment. This can then be used to inform decisions on improving contact center customer service performance.

3. Omnichannel customer communication

In line with unifying internal communications, proactive contact centers benefit from an omnichannel customer experience. This involves the provision of numerous channels through which customers communicate with a company according to their preferences, which may include telephone, social media, third party messaging apps, and SMS, among other channels. However, they must be fully integrated with each other, which requires a centralized data repository for each and every channel as part of the combined whole.

Essentially one communication funnel split into various different channels, it should provide a consistent, up-to-date customer experience at every touch point.

4. Cloud-based service provision

A great migration to the cloud is now taking place in general across services that process a large amount of customer data — including contact centers, which stand to benefit enormously. On-premise equipment is costly, presents security risks, and requires ongoing maintenance as well as patch updates. These needs become relics of the past with a switch to cloud-based alternatives and help contact centers to reduce overheads and run a more efficient operation.

Cloud-based alternatives enable contact centers to press on with other initiatives like incorporating a larger contingency workforce, which is a trend likely to gather pace as part of the global rise in remote work.

5. Recall technology

A technology that’s set to really make waves in contact center customer service is the ability to eliminate error messages without impacting the communication flow with customers.

This recall technology equips contact centers to only transmit correct and relevant messages to customers, which is truly a milestone breakthrough that will position companies to further enhance the customer experience.

Truly a new era for contact center customer service

Thanks to these five major technological advancements, organizations are able to comprehensively upgrade their contact centers like never before. With the right technological integrations in place, the contact center can become an integral business unit towards cultivating a reputation for delivering an enjoyable, efficient customer experience.

Categories: Utilities Technology