Executive Report on the Future of the Contact Center

Over the past year, Call Center IQ’s executive research reports have confirmed one undeniable reality: today’s contact center professionals have embraced a new customer experience normal. The community once notorious for prioritizing cost reduction has begun to recognize customer satisfaction as a more pivotal contact center focus and have declared a commitment to creating an omni-channel engagement center.

As organizations look toward 2016 and beyond, taking action towards this vision and commitment has become a priority.

Call Center IQ’s Executive Report on the Future of the Contact Center focuses on how to take that action. The report unveils a strategic roadmap for contact center excellence and concludes with a practicality guide which has never been featured in a Call Center IQ Executive Report.

Key Findings Include:

• As they approach the future, businesses identify "customer satisfaction" as the paramount contact center objective. "Customer loyalty" and "customer advocacy," which can represent progressions from customer satisfaction, are the next-biggest focuses.
• The people element represents the most prominent challenge facing today’s contact centers. Other top-ranking challenges include technology and channel engagement strategy.
• As they work to overcome their challenges – and pursue their key contact center objectives – organizations are most likely to prioritize technology matters. Agent-related initiatives and structural contact center changes (expansion, consolidation, and new vendor partnerships) represent the next-biggest priorities.
• When it comes to managing the people element, today’s organizations are most urgently focused on agent engagement, training, and retention.
• Over the next 6-24 months, gamification will garner considerable attention.
• When it comes to managing the technology solutions, knowledge management, agent engagement, and workforce management constitute the most urgent focuses.
• Customer experience measurement tools will be a consistent priority over the next two years, while predictive analytics will move toward the limelight later this year and into next year.
• When it comes to the overall omni-channel customer experience, customer satisfaction management represents the most urgent priority. It will hold that distinction for the rest of the year before ceding the throne to customer loyalty in 2017.
• In terms of individual channel capabilities, optimizing live chat is the biggest present-day priority. That focus will shift to mobile later in the year.