The technology transformation and the shifting attitudes of business leaders have brought revolutionary developments in the contact center software market.
A report states that contact center market is expected to grow from $17.65 billion in 2018 to $35.32 billion by 2023, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 14.9 percent during the forecast period.
One major trend in the contact center industry is the use of artificial intelligence (AI) applications.
It is said that the future of contact centers will revolve around the implementation of AI as AI today provides the ability to make high quality customer service accessible to all customers, 24/7.
A report by Gartner states that 40 percent of customer service interactions will be handled in part, or in full, by AI by 2020. Examples include New Dialogflow Enterprise Edition and its latest features that help build AI-powered virtual agents.
AI-powered interactive voice response (IVR) systems are gaining popularity. The text-to-speech capability of agents guides customers to the right department to handle enquiries quickly and efficiently; be it through pre-recorded or generated audio.
Innovations in IVR bring personalized experience in customer interactions. One example is Aspect IVR systems, which are built to provide a personalized customer experience. This helps in predicting solutions through speech recognition and eliminates the excessive expense required.
IVR systems also has cloud based servers, which allows for calls to be made and received anywhere and integration of IoT into machines and business mechanisms, which reduces the cost of hiring a number of employees to manage different departments.
Many businesses have also adopted this strategy which has led to steady increase in remote call agents, which gives cloud communications an advantage to set up offices across multiple locations and increase their workforces.
Cloud solutions are highly cost-efficient and create the ability for contact centers to provide excellent customer service and generate maximum revenue for themselves.
The shift from human labor to AI or chatbots will also pave the way for productivity in the area of customer service without hampering customer experience. This includes answering a call immediately, thereby reducing customer wait time and saving time for both the client and company.
In addition to AI, the adoption of analytics has also helped drive the growth of the contact center department.
As MarketsandMarkets states, the market for contact center analytics is expected to grow from $709.5 million in 2017 to $1.483.6 billion by 2022, at a CAGR of 15.9 percent.
The use of analytics enhances the way a company overlooks their clients and customers by providing not only an efficient data collecting system but also by creating a multi-channel system with the help of Customer Relationship Management and Enterprise Resource Planning.
Such digital transformation processes have also made the use of omni-channel and machine-to-machine communication more accessible and popular. The omni-channel system creates a platform for the customers to start a customer support activity in one channel, while making transitions to another. This then gives businesses better chance at providing the best for their customers.
The above technologies enhance problem solving and increase customer satisfaction. As today’s customers demand the flexibility to communicate in their preferred channel, at their preferred time, it is very important for contact centers to provide such services.
Yadawanka Pal
