What AI And Digital Mean For The Future Of The Contact Center

In the push for automation and customer service ease, customer contact leaders and call center teams have pushed to prioritize digital as not just a quality assurance tool, but a workforce support system. In recent months the industry has seen an emphasis on systems like ChatGPT, predictive programs and machine learning initiatives to support agents encumbered by consumer demand and high inquiry volumes. 

At times trying to understand just what "digital" and "AI" as concepts mean when it comes to real-life scenarios can be Maxtrix-level utterly confusing, unclear and undefinied. And when such confusion comes, a person can't be totally to blame: the digital transformation’s impact on companies and customers is a nuanced and complicated one.

On one hand, automation should be able to alleviate teams of monotonous daily tasks, collect consumer data for more personalized engagement and expedite call center response times. On the other hand, organizational leaders and employees find themselves at a loss when it comes to scaling business via automation, training on new tools and processes, and understanding how the internal use of tech impacts the external customer experience.

In CCW Digital’s August Market Study, Modernizing Service Experiences With AI & Digital, Customer Contact Week research identifies these pain points that organizations experience and quantifies those insights with data points that unveil consumer concerns in the push towards digital. 

As much as digital is poised to be a solution to traditional contact center concerns of long wait times, an abundance of transfer, cross-departmental confusion, data disconnect, and a lack of agent empowerment, the ushering in of advanced technology also opens the door to new kinds of problems that require solutions:

• 70% of customers trust companies to solve their problems over the phone
• The majority lack equivalent confidence in digital channels
• Just 49% have confidence in customer support via live chat
• 49% drops to 29% for messaging, and 14% for social media

By comparison, agents have a new set of performance concerns to address:

• Over 30% of employers feel they know what work the agent of the future will handle
• 26% are unclear on how the role of the agent will evolve
• About 15% of employers are unsure of how digital will change agent work will change
• Only 29% have a precise vision for the future of the agent

Whether it's understanding digital as an agent assist vs. agent replacement tool, assessing use cases for AI, or understanding consumer concerns in an oversaturated technology landscape, this new market study will allow customer contact leaders to make informed investments and decisions when it comes to deploying AI and digital in the workplace. 

Read our latest Market Study, Modernizing Service Experiences With AI & Digital, here. 

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash.