Call Center Technology Trends Every Business Leaders Must Know
Customer expectations have evolved, today they use multiple communication channels to reach out to a business. A simple call no longer makes the cut, they expect a business to be responsive on social media, chat, and emails too. More than 80% of customers demand that a business’s support service be as good as their product.
Thus, it’s no surprise that businesses strive to provide impeccable customer service. Call center technologies are the most effective way to accelerate and optimize day-to-day call center operations. It builds a great customer experience that fosters brand loyalty.
Modern-day call center solutions offer a plethora of features that enable businesses big or small to deliver remarkable customer service. As modern trends dominate communication technology, business leaders must understand and follow these trends to thrive in their respective businesses. Let’s uncover the upcoming call center technology trends—crucial for business leaders.
5 Call Center Technology Trends for 2023 and Beyond
Call center technologies have become more advanced thanks to the emerging advancements in communication technology. Modern-day call center technology offers a more flexible and scalable approach that empowers businesses to effortlessly manage significant operations.
Omnichannel communication has become the new standard feature
Customers hate being confined to one touchpoint for brand interaction. According to a study from CX Today, nine out of ten consumers prefer brands that offer omnichannel services. But ensuring the same customer experience over multiple communication channels is challenging for businesses. Omnichannel call center technology can counter this issue and aid businesses with a sustainable solution.
Omnichannel call center capabilities empower businesses to unify multiple communication channels, like chat, email, voice call, video call, etc., into a single platform. It works as an asset for centralizing and optimizing customer interactions, delivering a seamless customer experience across all communication channels. Even if a caller is disconnected due to network disturbances, the agents can pick up the conversation from the same point without the caller repeating the concern again. This eliminates customer frustration and aids agents in better understanding them.
AI plays a vital role in uplifting customer experience
Implementing AI in call center technologies has unlocked new opportunities for efficient business communication operations. Over 30% of customers believe that chatbots and virtual assistants simplify their query resolution process. Whether it’s skill-based call routing or automating customer conversation on multiple channels like chat and email, AI maintains a seamless ecosystem at all touch points. It facilitates precise solutions through augmented accuracy and resolves customer complaints faster than conventional systems.
Predictive and analytical AI implementation helps to generate immediate responses based on collected data over time. Call center agents can leverage these insights to deliver a personalized customer experience. For instance, when a customer calls, the forecasting feature of AI takes over, providing the agent with a variety of viable solutions. The agent can then decide to choose a suitable response and disregard the inappropriate responses. This way agents can instantly address customer queries and maintain a better CX.
AI can also be integrated into IVR systems to enhance functionality and deliver a better customer experience. It improves the efficiency of customer self-service platforms by delivering transparency. For instance, it notifies customers about call hold times. Moreover, if call center agents are busy, IVR can direct calls to voicemail for additional assistance. This way customers feel more valued which increases their brand loyalty.
Analytics serves as a strong foundation for customer-centric companies
Before the technological advancements, businesses mainly depended on floor managers’ skills to boost agents’ performance and productivity. Today call center software produces real-time performance reports that offer actionable insights to businesses. These insights assist businesses in examining hourly call volume data to mark the attendance of agents during operating hours, and ensuring 24*7 customer support if called for.
Read Also: The Five Most Compelling Reasons to Automate your Call Center
KPIs like First Call Resolution, CSAT, average handling time, etc., helps businesses understand customer experience and work on areas of improvement. Data analytics also fosters sales and increased custom retention for companies who upsell or cross-sell while providing customer service.
With customer scorecards becoming more relevant, companies are employing powerful data analytics solutions to assure customer quality performance. Some of these are:
- Interaction analytics: Drives insights on customer interactions based on KPIs like FCR, and average waiting time.
- Speech analytics: Identifying frequently used phrases to drive insights on common queries, pain points, etc.
- Performance analytics: Evaluate agent performance based on predetermined metrics such as call closure rate, average talk time, etc.
The utilization of these analytics is gradually becoming a driving force for strategic decision-making for companies. Through the use of in-built dashboards that summarizes various call center data, businesses are better able to manage their day-to-day communications
Self-service has leveled up with advanced tools
Millennials and Gen-Z are hands-on with technology and believe in doing things themselves. Most of them like using the resources offered by websites and customer portals, such as control panels and knowledge bases. 90% of customers expect companies to offer an online portal for self-service. Thus it’s more than a necessity for companies to implement robust self-service communication models to build a customer-independent approach.
The new-age call center software caters to this trend and offers customers technological capabilities such as IVR, chat, and messaging apps. It instantly provides them with crucial information such as order status, tracking ID, and refund status. These specifics significantly reduce the long hold times for customers and help cut down the average resolution time for an issue. It also shortens call queues and saves agents time, enabling them to concentrate on solving other more complex issues.
Cloud communication is the new norm
The birth of cloud communication technology paved new ways for business-customer interaction. However, until the pandemic, businesses didn’t rely on using cloud communications in call centers.
The exponential growth in project management platforms and steady growth of remote agents increased the use of cloud communication technology. With on-premise call centers becoming obsolete, there’s a reason International Data Corporation (IDC) predicts that in the coming years, business cloud solutions will continue to surpass (by 54%) on-site technology investments (by 46%).
Merits of cloud-based call centers:
- The cloud-based call center uses call center technology hosted in the cloud. It handles all sorts of communications, such as inbound/outbound calls, including voice calls, email, SMS, social media, etc.
- The cloud call center isn’t bound to a physical location, offering agents the flexibility of location and time.
- It facilitates a centralized knowledge base so agents and employees can access the required information.
- Cloud-based communication technology provides businesses with the agility, scalability, and diversity for their growth. It lowers their infrastructural and operational cost and fosters CX.
Moving towards virtual call centers with technology
Convenience, resolution times, and agent expertise are three main factors that build a great customer experience. Virtual call center technology helps brands meet these expectations and enables higher rates of customer retention and loyalty. As virtual call centers evolve with emerging technologies, businesses gain a competitive edge for boosting their revenue generation by ensuring a stellar customer experience.
HoduCC is one of the powerful call center technologies that businesses of all sizes can adopt to achieve their goals. It is the best call center software, and its features such as call routing, ACD, predictive dialing, etc. help to deliver an exceptional customer experience. Check our website to learn more about HoduCC and other HoduSoft products.
