Talking to a contact center agent may be the only communication a consumer has with your brand, and the stakes can be high for every interaction. Putting that into perspective, a Qualtrics survey found that 43% of respondents were at least somewhat likely to switch brands after only a single negative customer service interaction.
This is why it is critical to consider and address common contact center challenges to make sure your agents are set up for success. Here's an overview of four common contact and call center problems and solutions involving technology that can help companies better serve customers.
Four contact center challenges
According to Zendesk’s CX Trends Report, 70% of organizations see a direct connection between customer service and performance. As a critical provider of your customer service, addressing these four contact center operational challenges can help to ensure that customer expectations are met and that your business performance is not adversely impacted.
1. Legacy technology
Outdated systems often prevent contact centers from running effectively. A survey by Call Centre Helper magazine found that nearly one-fifth of respondents said slow or outdated technology was the biggest barrier to making the customer experience easier.
Some legacy technologies could prevent contact centers from implementing new solutions—such as chatbots, virtual assistants, speech recognition technologies, artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced interactive voice response (IVR) systems—that could enable them to deliver around-the-clock support. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce identified providing 24/7/365 customer service as a pandemic-era trend that is here to stay.
According to Zendesk, three-quarters of customers expect to engage with someone immediately when contacting a company. This is another area where antiquated technology can add to your contact center operational challenges. With automation, agents are better equipped to resolve a customer's issue faster—whether it's quickly routing their call to the right agent or gathering information in real-time to help agents deliver more personalized service.
Modernizing technology and onboarding cloud-based, AI-driven solutions can help you move your contact center away from legacy systems, boost agent productivity and enhance customer service.
2. High turnover rates
According to the 2022 NICE Workforce Engagement Management (WEM) Global Survey Report on contact center attrition, contact center managers and employees found that the industry attrition rate in 2021 was 42%. That number rose to 50% for companies with over 5,000 agents. The survey noted several factors that could help address these turnover rates:
- Better pay
- Clear path for career growth
- Flexible scheduling options
- Access to hybrid working arrangements
- Improved learning and development
Many of these issues are longstanding contact and call center problems and solutions for some of them will likely require more than just technology. However, there are ways technology can help organizations mitigate high attrition rates.
Cloud-based global contact center solutions can provide many of the features agents desire. Here are a few examples:
- Workforce scheduling services can empower contact center agents when it comes to their schedules and helps management forecast agent availability, schedule shifts, track metrics and optimize resource use.
- Today's workforce wants to be able to work remotely from virtually anywhere. Over one-quarter of agents surveyed said flexible working arrangements had a high impact on deciding to continue with their current employer. Providing this option allows you to address two contact center challenges at once: address attrition and expand the talent pool you can recruit from.
- Intelligent contact routing identifies the best agent to respond and ensures they have the information they need to improve their response. This reduces the need for manager intervention while also allowing you to maximize any language or subject matter expertise your remote workforce may have.
- AI-powered virtual assistants can help you deliver automated and personalized self-service experiences across all digital channels, meeting customer demand for self-help options while also reducing the volume of work contact center agents must handle.
3. Operational and technology silos
Silos are one of the most persistent call center challenges. Research from Salesforce suggests that 76% of customers expect consistent interactions across departments, yet a majority (54%) feel this expectation isn't being met.
An omnichannel cloud contact center platform brings all support channels together in one place. Agents can easily transition between voice, text and digital interactions and better serve customers on the channel that works best for them. Live agent tools can pass along crucial contextual information when conversations are escalated from agent to agent (either virtual or human), meaning customers aren't required to recap the entire conversation.
Virtual platforms also benefit from contact center knowledge management software that consolidates and streamlines the sharing of information—which not only reduces silos but can reduce training times and improve agent efficiency, too.
4. Data complexity and inefficiencies
Every customer interaction is a valuable data point which contact centers can use to gain insight into the performance of their products and services and better understand how they are either exceeding or falling short of customers' expectations. Tools, such as sentiment tracking, social media engagement and customer surveys can all help in this regard.
Yet, maximizing the benefits of this data is one of the biggest contact center challenges today. In a Verizon survey of U.S. business and IT executives, a majority (54%) said positioning the company for growth with data knowledge and analytics was among the most challenging customer experience-related areas to improve.
An AI-powered cloud contact center platform can provide a central location to consolidate, draw insights from and take action on this data. This could include:
- Aggregating agent performance data from disparate systems
- Using algorithms to analyze call center data and compare with performance metrics
- Leveraging interactive reporting that can be downloaded for additional customization and analytics
A partner to help with contact and call center problems and solutions
Call centers play an important role in driving an enhanced customer experience, but legacy technologies, high turnover rates, persistent silos and data complexity can prevent them from performing effectively and efficiently. Collaborating with an experienced, proven technology provider can help to improve your ability to give customers what they need, and end-to-end CX consulting services can help you create better experiences, drive results and mitigate security risks.
Technology modernization, particularly a cloud-based contact center, will help address many of these contact and call center problems. Learn more about how you can easily ramp up Verizon's agile, efficient and cost-effective cloud contact center solutions to provide you the flexibility and innovation to deliver world-class personalized experiences at a global scale.
The author of this content is a paid contributor for Verizon.