Most Important Call Center Technology Trending in 2019

Technological advancements have evolved to become bridge connecting call centers and customers. Companies leverage a lot from the latest tools as the latest tech tools help in augmenting the business processes, which affects the customer experience too.

With time, new trends have emerged in the industry booming call center services. In the BPO industry, the latest technology trend is all about Artificial Intelligence (AI), Robotic Process Automation (RPA), Internet of Things (IoT), Cloud-based services, etc.

Nowadays, most of the company’s research on productive measures to handle customer experience well. Not only is this, but companies also look for the latest trends to help in boosting customer satisfaction.

The call center landscape will undoubtedly shift in the time to come, as it has already altered a lot as compared to the earlier business functions. Technology upgrades not only benefits the business agents but also changes the business activities by helping the customers.

With 2019 moving towards its end, some trending technologies brought a swing in business processes. Do you know them all?

Well, various advancements have maximized the quality of customer experience, and we pen down some trending technologies that empower businesses to gain a competitive edge over competitors:

» Interactive Voice Response (IVR)

IVR is an automatic telephony system that works to interact with customers and helps in avoiding long waiting hours of the customers.

Earlier, the client had to wait in long queues to get her/his issues solved. However, with automated services, customers’ call is re-routed to the best agents so that supreme satisfaction is assured.

This automated transfer of calls helps in faster problem solution and augments customer satisfaction.

More and more companies today want automated services so that they can save their customers’ time and help with enhancing satisfaction to earn business brand image.

IVR technology is also efficient in giving replies to the customer query. In the future, IVRs will handle the customers’ alone automating all functions and easing the processes to the customers, which is why it is the most favorite trending technology of the BPO industry.

IVRs as programmed to solve customer queries for which they can transfer data to get assistance. The technology uses keypad signal logic to enhance customer-business communication.

» Cloud-Based Call Center

The use of cloud-based technology is already in use by most of the companies; however, many firms still lack in-depth knowledge of its perks.

Companies invest in new technologies when they find business benefits in doing so. This is why it is essential to make more and more organizations familiar with the offerings of cloud services.

A cloud-based call center helps businesses have the preference of several communication channels with automated services. The cloud communication channels re-route calls easily and make sure that call abandonment does not deteriorate customer satisfaction.

With various advantages that cloud service brings to a business, it has become the most trending call center need.

Cloud service offers perks like the access to highly detailed analytics, data of call duration, data of call abandonment and call hold time with several other perks.

» Voice-Powered Technology (VPT)

Voice-activated or voice-powered technology is the need of the hour. VPT based Siri and Alexa are the biggest examples.

VPT acts as a virtual assistant, which is used by more and more call centers to augment their business customer satisfaction.

A study conducted by McKinsey in 2017 says, “voice-powered technology will not eliminate call center jobs but, rather, transform them in important ways. Ultimately, it will benefit businesses and consumers alike.”

» The Integration of Artificial Intelligence in Customer Interactions

Artificial intelligence-based apps help businesses streamline their processes and AI even helps in augmenting call center experiences for both customers and agents.

Call centers have started using AI applications for call routing, as they know these apps can reply to the customers instantly. With AI technology, there is no threat of call hold issues and call abandonment, which earlier degraded customer satisfaction.

AI offers several other perquisites to call center practices, which is why it is in high demand by the call center industry. Since AI helps to boost business-customer connections, call centers cannot avoid bringing it in use.

» Digitalization

Digital transformation has completely re-structured the business performance and has altered the way companies used to function.

With a paradigm shift in business processes, digitalization brought technological revolution like unified omnichannel communication, machine-to-machine communications, RPA, Internet of Things (IoT), AI, etc. With the digital revolution, the call center industry has no option rather to work hand in hand with new advancements to enrich customer experience.

The digitalization effect is so superlative that it helps the employees in analyzing and collecting business-related information strategically.
With digital transformation, vendors offering APIs with a new level of customization get seamless customer experience.

» The use of Analytics

To augment the business service and enrich the customer experience, businesses need to use data-driven analytics. Well, you must be curious why!

This is because it is better to identify problems by measuring agents’ performance. When a business checks the performance of the agents with analytics, they get a better idea on the customers’ requirement and the area where the agent goes wrong.

An organization can boost its service when it has experienced agents at work with the analysis of performance regularly so that the changes are instant.

Gathering direct customer feedback through surveys, calls, emails, etc. can help to analyze business performance and assists in getting a view on the productive changes to meet.

Businesses can also include new methods to help in upgrading business processes.

» Using Self-Service Tools

Self-service tools are the new customer preferred service. Research says that customers nowadays prefer self-service, rather contacting a support agent.

Self-services are video tutorials to FAQ pages, which virtual customers can go through online to solve their queries. Many clients look forward to using self-service tools, as they feel satisfied solving their queries on their own.

The process has grown in trend, as it abolishes the need of the customer to wait in long queues or get an unsatisfying answer from the agent. Advanced self-service tools help to solve the issues faster and customers do not mind managing the process themselves too.

Call centers know the importance of self-service tools and therefore, they make sure that their business offers the desired tools without any hindrance.

» The Two-Way Social Media Conversation

Social media presence has always been supreme and will remain the same for all businesses. Customers want a place where they can share their feedback and no place can more efficient than connecting the business to customers through social media channels.

Although, with changing market needs, the business way to approach social media conversation has changed. Customers today demand a channel where they can communicate with the business agent online. They want a live agent to hear their concern related to business shortcomings.

Customers today expect personalized responses to their queries and this trend is all set to enhance customer satisfaction astoundingly in the time to come.

The future is expected to bring better platforms and apps for personalized business-customer communication, which is why a two-way communication model is the next booming call center trend.

Negative comments can be a big drawback for the business and therefore customer queries need to be answered on time with an adequate response to sustain customer satisfaction. Call centers aim to satisfy customers’ need, and therefore they have to use all social media channels effectively to bring the best to the customers.

» The use of Recall Technology

Call center activity is not just about empowering the business customers, but the coming tenure will see BPOs empowering their agents too!

This is where recall technology comes to help. The technology empowers the business agents by:

› No bad message access.

› The capacity to solve any issue related to miss-information for better customer satisfaction and to save time and money.

› Importance to conversational flow to augment customer experience.

Not all these factors were given the same importance earlier by call center companies. However, with the change in time and demand preferences, empowering agents with excellent service to customers became important.

The use of technology is vital today, as it helps to save the business time and money resulting in saving millions for the call center.

» Remote Call Center Agents

The time to come is of remote call center agents! Time zone perks and working hours flexibility has made remote call center agents the new trend that all call centers desire.

With the help of cloud communication, remote call center agents can make the business tasks mobile.

Since cloud technology helps agents in providing access to real-time analytics and customer context information to the business, which is why its demand has increased in the market.

Wrap Up:

The above trends have already brought a meteoric impact on the call center industry and will continue to bring outstanding results to the business processes. Integrating these advancements in business operations is the need of the hour and all call center companies need to include these innovations to enhance their processes to the customers.

Thanks for reading!