Paul Bryce, Chief Commercial Officer, Node4 -
Richard Buxton, Director, N4Engage -
Phil Cantore, Senior Presales Consultant, N4Engage -
Dave Smith, Channel Director, Enghouse -
Jeremy Payne, VP International Marketing, Enghouse
A world turned upside down has forced business leaders, particularly those managing contact centres and customer services operations, to think about how they can better prepare for the future.
On the one hand, it’s about improving the scalability of systems, processes and resources, so your customer service team is prepared for whatever life throws at it. But it’s also about looking at the direction the industry is moving in. In many cases, the events of this year have accelerated digital transformation initiatives which were already in progress.
Last month, we brought our specialists together with experts from Enghouse Interactive for a panel discussion on the future of customer service. And while our experts don’t have a crystal ball on the trajectory of the pandemic or future government decisions, here they provide some useful predictions on what customer service will look like in the next few years.
Organisations will deploy Artificial Intelligence (AI) more strategically
Gone are the days when businesses jump on the AI bandwagon and deploy it as the latest, greatest technology, without having a customer experience strategy behind it.
“There’s been quite an evolution of understanding over the last 24 months, in terms of what AI is good for and what it’s not good for,” says Jeremy Payne, Group VP Marketing & Alliances at Enghouse. “What we’re increasingly seeing is that pre-packaged bots are used to do a very defined, specific thing.
“For example, with housing associations and local governments, the questions they get asked are in very similar clustered patterns. In those kinds of scenarios, AI, bots or just publishing the answers through user forums and websites enable people to self-serve.”
“We’re also seeing AI and chatbots, not necessarily at the customer end, but at the agent end,” says Dave Smith, Channel Director at Enghouse.
“Organisations are introducing self-service, assisted bots for agents, allowing them to gain access to articles and information. This technology ensures they’re consistently delivering the right information to customers.”
Want to hear more from our experts on the changing face of customer contact?
Click here for the full panel discussion.
The contact centre workforce will evolve
Think call centre and what probably comes to mind is an open plan office, with agents sitting at desks, all wearing headsets, all reading from the same script. But according to experts, this set-up is changing and will look even more different in the next few years.
“One of the biggest shifts that we’re going to see is in the people and skillsets that you see within a customer-facing organisation,” says Jeremy. “There is a lot of automation, AI and self-service capability out there, and it’s here to stay.
“What’s changing is the skill sets that agents need to deal with those kinds of customer enquiries. Organisations already have those skills inside their organisation and Unified Communications, platforms like Slack and Microsoft Teams, will play a role in connecting agents to those individuals.
“But you’re also going to see more customer service professionals with highly specialised skill sets. So, for example, crowdsourced advice on user forums requires an editor or administrator who’s vetting posts to make sure they’re acceptable and technically correct.
“If we think about lots of travel firms right now, they find themselves in the middle of customer interactions that are bordering on legal disputes. So they need somebody with really high-level negotiation skills, potentially with a legal background.
“That person may not be an employee of your organisation. They may work for five other companies just like yours, and get folded into customer interactions as and when required.”
Video will remain a key communication channel
Over the last six months, video has reigned supreme as a way for people to communicate with each other.
In the world of customer contact, customers have got used to accessing services via video. Agents, too, are using video for interactions with customers and colleagues. Richard Buxton, Director of N4Engage argues that video is here to stay.
“We’re seeing lots of businesses now embracing it,” he says. “Whilst the technology has been there for a long time, it’s not been widely adopted until now.
“People are becoming more and more comfortable having interactions with organisations over video. Take video consultations with doctors, for example. That sort of medical service is going to become the norm.
“Internally too, video will enable contact centres to operate remotely. Initially, we saw remote working as a temporary move, but it’s going to become the norm. You’re going to have dynamic, distributed agents working from lots of different locations, whether that’s home, smaller offices or flexible offices spaces.”
The desire for business agility will drive many a technological change 2020 has been a wake-up call for businesses. Those who struggled to set up a remote workforce, deal with high volume contact centre traffic and atypical customer interactions, don’t want to get burnt again.
“There’s going to be a lot of reengineering of existing environments,” says Phil Cantore, Senior Presales Consultant at N4Engage. “Perhaps there will be some simplification of workflows to make things easier, and to cope with unexpected volumes.”
“What this year has shown businesses is they probably need a lot more agility in their culture, systems and processes to accommodate unplanned events,” adds Jeremy. “Organisations want to be able to fold in another 50, 100, 200 people overnight and equip them to follow a standard script or triage inbound calls. That desire to flex and scale in a commercially viable way will continue driving organisations towards the cloud.”
Behind all of these changes, of course, lies a desire for a more efficient, more satisfying customer experience. With organisations focused on providing the best customer experience, with the right people, workflows and technology in place, the days of the traditional call centre could be behind us – and the future of customer contact looks bright.
The desire for business agility will drive many a technological change
2020 has been a wake-up call for businesses. Those who struggled to set up a remote workforce, deal with high volume contact centre traffic and atypical customer interactions, don’t want to get burnt again.
“There’s going to be a lot of reengineering of existing environments,” says Phil Cantore, Senior Presales Consultant at N4Engage. “Perhaps there will be some simplification of workflows to make things easier, and to cope with unexpected volumes.”
“What this year has shown businesses is they probably need a lot more agility in their culture, systems and processes to accommodate unplanned events,” adds Jeremy. “Organisations want to be able to fold in another 50, 100, 200 people overnight and equip them to follow a standard script or triage inbound calls. That desire to flex and scale in a commercially viable way will continue driving organisations towards the cloud.”
Behind all of these changes, of course, lies a desire for a more efficient, more satisfying customer experience. With organisations focused on providing the best customer experience, with the right people, workflows and technology in place, the days of the traditional call centre could be behind us – and the future of customer contact looks bright.
Want to hear more from our experts on the changing face of customer contact?
Click here for the full panel discussion.
About Enghouse Interactive:
Enghouse Interactive delivers technology and expertise to maximise the value of every customer interaction. Core technologies include contact centre, attendant console, predictive outbound dialler, knowledge management, IVR and call recording solutions that support any telephony environment, on-premise or in the cloud. Enghouse Interactive has thousands of customers worldwide, supported by a global network of partners and more than 800 dedicated staff across the company’s international operations.
Enghouse Interactive is a subsidiary of Enghouse Systems Limited, a software and services company traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) under the symbol “ENGH.” Founded in 1984, Enghouse Systems is a consistently profitable company, which has grown both organically and through the acquisition of well-regarded specialists including AndTek, Arc, CosmoCom, Dialogic, Datapulse, Eptica, IAT, IT Sonix, Presence Technology, Reitek, Safeharbor, Survox, Syntellect, Telrex, Trio, Voxtron, Vidyo and Zeacom.
