The concept of call center leads to the concept of contact centers. The notion of call centers first appeared in the 1980s. Organizations that provide customer services have always been in a consistent struggle to respond to ever-growing and ever-changing demands and expectations of customers. That is the time when contact centers respond to modern days’ challenges and complexities of providing customers with satisfying experience.
In modern times, contact center services have a pertinent and growing significance in the economies across the world. The contact center industry has seen a transition from simple voice calls to multi-channel interactions and from random to analytics-based quality management systems. Recent contact center transformation is changing the way customer feel and experience with a particular organization.
Let us know more about the contact center.
A contact center comprises of a set of resources that ensure the services via the telephone. Generally, resources include people who are the agents that handle calls. They are commonly referred to as customer service representative and they interact with the users or consumers of the services that are provided by a company using certain tools.
Every time, an interaction happens when there is contact between a consumer and the company. Contact center operates both inbound and outbound interactions with the users. Inbound interactions are those which are started by outside users requesting for some services to the centers, whereas outbound interactions are those which are started from within a contact center.
In modern times, call centers transformed into contact centers due to the use of innovative channels such as chat, e-mail, fax, and short message, etc.
Contact centers come with numerous benefits. Some of them are listed below:
Virtual contact centers: Modern contact centers use SIP which is another name for voice-over-internet-protocol system to reduce complexity and cost. Moreover, SIP helps in improved customer satisfaction by making sure that not only the agent but anyone in the organization can interact with the customer.
The focus of present day contact center is to do away the need to have all customer service specialists in one physical area – instead of combining different agents into a single virtual element.
Social Media Capacities: Emerging contact centers are equipped with capabilities and access that are needed to solve issues emerging from social media channels. Comparatively, younger customers want organizations to answer their issues through different channels like Web and social media. These channels appeal strongly to the younger generations.
Given the massive reach of social media, it is an excellent way to get insights into customer’s attitude and behavior. Social media can enhance customer experience and satisfaction when organizations connect their social networks to Facebook/LinkedIn profiles of the customers to gain a better understanding when customers call the contact center.
Access to Smart Phones: The agents of contact centers are equipped with the tools that help them to gain real-time contextual information. With the rapid growth of Smartphone devices and mobile apps, many customers demand access to customer service through these channels. Therefore, it becomes imperative to integrate these mobile phones with existing call-centers capacities. And we know that is what the modern contact center does.
Organizations that fail to provide web-based and more interactive customer service will have to bear the brunt of low revenue and fewer customers. These devices provide customer representatives with real-time information such as customer location, profile information, and service history, etc.
Advanced Analytics: Contact centers harness the latest technological tools that could analyze huge volumes of unorganized data. Additionally, these tools can also assist contact centers in gaining crucial insights into customer behavior.
Digital transformation is one of the latest trends in the modern era. The meaningful digital transformation makes sure that organizations can compete and thrive in today’s digital economy that covers everything from processes to systems.
Recent studies show that most of the companies that deal in customer services are involved in some kind of contact center digital transformation.
It is believed that contact center transformation can change interactions with customers by:
Contact centers have seen the evolution from primary call center operations to a multi-channel unit for handling the management of customer relationships. The present contact centers deal with inbound and outbound calls, Web requests, e-mail, and chat with global customers and over numerous business verticals.
If contact centers want to keep up with the modern competitive pace, they must equip themselves with new robust technologies that can assist them in extending their businesses. In the coming years, Contact centers must address the ever-changing and ever-growing preferences and demands of customers and the need for multi-channel consistency.
Future contact centers must provide always-on service because young clients want to purchase from organizations as per their plan and hence do not value an office-hours culture. Organizations that fail to reply, or reply with “call back when the office is open”, will lose the game to those who are quick to respond. Contact center transformation is happening such a rapid pace that future prospect for this industry is very optimistic.
Now we have to wait to see how contact center transformation will continue to evolve in the years to come to serve the customers with optimum satisfaction.
Contact center transformation Market is growing rapidly because it adopts the latest technological developments and understands and caters to the needs of the modern and young customers. As customer services go beyond phone calls to other digital communication channels that include web chat, e-mail, and social media, in such a scenario, agencies and organizations that are involved in contact centers must explore and find ways that could make for customers to find answers and resolve the problems.
Now, companies are increasing their focus on customer retention by understanding the needs and behavior of customers. The objective of any contact centers should be to give a steady, top-notch customer involvement with each touch point and paying little attention to how and where a client decides to interact with the organization. The Global Contact Center Transformation Market size is expected to rise at a market growth of 17.4% CAGR during the forecast period.
