How Customer Contact Centers Are Going to Change Over the Next Few Years

Thanks to the credit crunch, companies have realized the need to adopt a customer centric strategy. However, contact centers are unlikely to undergo major changes over the next few years.

What are the possible changes?

Now that new and innovative products are making their foray into the market, we should definitely see an improvement in customer care. Several organizations have already turned to cloud-based systems to improve the performance of their contact centers. There are also many organizations that have not yet woken up to the challenge.

The problems facing the contact centers

The most important factor that is still preventing many companies from upgrading their contact centers is the lack of budgets. Another reason is that organizations have not yet felt the need to change. Contact centers have been around for decades and have established a certain way of doing business. They just don't feel the need to embrace change anytime soon.

It is true that all organizations now want to be customer centric, but very few have got the right technology and people in place to deal with an empowered customer. Budget constraints are another major problem. Most organizations allocate nearly 90% of their operating budget to run existing systems. They do not have enough money to invest in newer systems.

Furthermore, running a contact center is hard work. Agents can go sick and customer problems can go unresolved. As a result, call center managers do not have enough time to explore the market to see if new technologies or products are available. All of these factors prevent them from adopting change.

The slowly changing face of call centers

The biggest change so far is the adoption of VoIP technologies. Now nearly 50% contact centers use VoIP. However, this change is largely fuelled by a desire to reduce operating costs. What's more, those contact centers that use VoIP do not use all the available features.

Another area that witnessed growth is the deployment of automated tools like IVR. Unfortunately, these tools have not yet been able to significantly improve the customer service.

Contact centers of tomorrow

Things are unlikely to be all that different 3 or 5 years from now. Over the next few years, the most likely changes will be the investments in VoIP technologies. There will also be some workforce optimization.

The two things that give hope to people expecting a sea change in customer care are the rise of cloud solutions and the increasing empowerment of the customer. Most companies now realize the need to improve their customer service. This will definitely encourage companies to invest in technologies that support multiple channels.

Gone are the days when letters and telephone were the only tools customers had at their disposal. Now they can contact the support center via multiple channels including text messaging, chat, and video. Applications that can personalize web-based interactions will also be popular in the future. There will also be an increase in the number of companies using smart desktop and web-based systems.

As we have already seen, the biggest change will be the adoption of cloud-based VoIP solutions. When companies use cloud systems, they do not have to invest in expensive hardware and software. Using a cloud-based solution is as simple as using a traditional web browser. As a result, agents and customers can use them easily.

Social media

Customers are increasingly taking to the internet to voice their complaints. Tools that allow companies to integrate social activity to their customer handling strategies are also likely to be popular.

In short, customer contact centers are unlikely to change much during the next five years or so. However, customers are more likely to receive better service.