The Digital Revolution is here to stay. A digital transformation for contact centres and the service offerings within the BPO industry is a vital and necessary step for the future of the industry. While digital channels are getting better and better at replicating a human touch and technology improves to a degree where customer data monitoring and AI become powerful enough to automate and pre-empt most responses to customer concerns – A true human touch will always be imperative. Despite younger generations relying more on chat or social media channels to interact with businesses (in the same way they would with friends and family) and increased general competence within digital channel usage – customer service calls actually seemed to increase drastically over the course of the COVID 19 Pandemic. A symptom of a still nascent digital customer service provision.
Despite growing demand and continued lauding of how AI – specifically conversational AI – can reduce costs (up to 55% compared to traditional BPOs according to some) These will only ever be able to solve Tier 1 issues for the foreseeable future – so businesses should be wary of overreliance.
There is also the notion that the more channels offered to customers and the more choice they have; the better the customer experience. However this has not proved to be true, particularly in the case of offering multiple avenues for self service. Gartner reports that this approach fundamentally doesn’t fulfil its purpose of reducing live call volumes and that based on surveys, customers’ top preferred channel for issue resolution remains phone calls at 44% compared to other channels.
Businesses looking to create empathetic engagement with their customers will still need to rely on highly trained and multi capable human agents to solve more nuanced or complex requests and BPOs with a focus and expertise in creating human connection with customers will continue to remain vital.
Nevertheless, equal attention should still be given to bolstering each channel and continued focus on AI development. As a business providing effective CX, every front should be able to guide the customer through their needs according to their capacity.
Essentially it all comes down to what the client/business is looking for, what specific goals and or metrics they are trying to succeed in. It is important that a business determines this and clarifies before reaching out to providers of customer service tools and operations.
CCI are constantly evolving and as the organization continues to make strides and expand its breadth of services we endeavor to always think ahead to better engage with our community. Find us on Linkedin and connect with our regional pages to find out more on what is going on and how we can help you be better at what you do.
