{"id":4491,"date":"2016-10-06T14:34:00","date_gmt":"2016-10-06T14:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/projects\/horsesforsources\/glimpse-into-the-contact-center-of-the-future\/"},"modified":"2016-10-06T14:34:00","modified_gmt":"2016-10-06T14:34:00","slug":"glimpse-into-the-contact-center-of-the-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/glimpse-into-the-contact-center-of-the-future\/","title":{"rendered":"A glimpse into the contact center of the future: the digitally enabled contact center"},"content":{"rendered":"
When I set out to do a spinoff Blueprint<\/a> on the future of contact center services, I thought of this concept that only seemed logical to explain as “digitally-enabled contact center.” Initially, I think this inspired more confusion and uncertainty than it did to define the future of contact center services. I confused the service providers, who were convinced they had already provided their best digital story, and the buyer references, who had way more examples of traditional call center work than true digital enablement. I’m admitting this, hoping that we can learn from the lesson that sometimes it takes a lot of battling through confusion\/hype\/ attempted brainwashing to figure out what’s really going on in the markets we cover.<\/p>\n The most important question this exercise inspired is: how can the contact center break free from legacy butts in seats engagements that force customers into bad conversations they don’t want to be having– and create a customer experience that serves the digital customer, and inspires greater satisfaction and loyalty?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n What is a digitally enabled contact center?<\/strong> <\/p>\n At the most basic level, embracing “digital” channels: social media, web self-service including mobile apps and visual IVR, video kiosks and chat is the start of digitally-enabled contact center. Also important is seeking to use automation to create efficiencies; and the really smart contact center operators are trying to figure out how to involve increasingly intelligent automation<\/a> into the mix. <\/p>\n It’s more than just implementing these channels, though, it’s the design of how each channel fits into the overall customer journey, and the understanding of how talent fits into the equation– talent that not only can handle communication on varied channels that demand different styles (yet consistency!) but can also take contextual information from multiple sources and use that in a way that benefits the customer. From an analytics perspective, it’s all about using the data to better understand customers, enable personalization and be more predictive. <\/p>\n A digitally enabled contact center is way more than the technology—humans are actually at the heart of a digitally enabled contact center. <\/strong><\/p>\n Ultimately, a digitally enabled contact center is one that supports Intelligent OneOffice. It’s not just about supporting the digital channels themselves, it’s the design and strategy about how digital impacts the way enterprises handle customer service in a “customer first” organization. Ask anyone who has worked in a call center and they will tell you it’s hard and it can be tedious. I can attest to this as someone who’s toured dozens, and worked in them myself. But, there are moments when it can be very rewarding; moments of human connection and real customer satisfaction, and even loyalty—those moments are what we need to focus on in order to understand what’s at the heart of this rapidly changing industry—and requires a digital strategy to support. <\/p>\n Digital enablement is happening in spurts<\/strong> <\/p>\n A contact center strategy that addresses all the above capabilities is largely aspirational. Digitally enabled contact center is happening in pockets – little bits here and there. Some of the highlights include:<\/p>\n How to thrive and not just survive—Contact center services need to cross the chasm by:<\/strong><\/p>\n Future-proofing the contact center services business <\/strong><\/p>\n There’s lots of talk about cannibalization of legacy engagements. Contact center service providers’ mitigation strategy must be multi fold—they must provide something in conjunction with traditional operations that addresses automation and self-service, built in with exception support (with a great talent strategy) to address the changing contact center model to derive more value out of clients’ investments.<\/p>\n One of the wild cards with the potential biggest impact is artificial intelligence – as we discuss in the Blueprint, many of the traditional contact center service providers are not looking at artificial intelligence in any meaningful way. Whether they invest in a partnership strategy or at the least develop a team to study its potential impact, action needs to be taken– but most providers are content to bury their heads in the sand. Eventually artificial intelligence will have a material impact on contact centers, and it won’t be pretty for the providers who are dependent on butts in seats. Understanding how to blend the best of human and artificial intelligence, and a greater sense of urgency to understand how this will impact the industry is sorely needed right now. <\/p>\n And I’ve waited this long to get to the dreaded “omnichannel” phrase, but let’s face it: in the future, anything can be a “channel”—it could be a car, or a watch, or a refrigerator. What this demands more than anything is an agility that is very rarely found- and often antithetical- to traditional contact center services. <\/p>\n The Bottom Line: The entire future of contact center (and OneOffice) hinges on creating different kinds of relationships<\/strong><\/p>\n This seems to beg for a design thinking first strategy. One executive quote from a recent analyst event<\/a> that stood out was: “We’re teaching clients how to work differently, and they’re teaching us. We’re learning together.” These are the kind of relationships that will ultimately generate a customer experience that keeps contact centers a critical part of the CX strategy. I’ll be really excited to take another look at this digitally enabled contact center in a year or two. With so much of the discussion being around pilots and big picture thinking, I’ll be eager to see how some of this stuff comes to fruition. <\/p>\n For an evaluation of the digitally enabled contact center market themes and service provider analysis, click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When I set out to do a spinoff Blueprint on the future of contact center services, I thought of this…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[193,196,244,268,392,543],"ppma_author":[34],"yoast_head":"\n\n
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