The COVID-19 pandemic threw down the gauntlet for customer contact leaders, urging them to modernize their operations and increase agility. It was a reminder that the customer experience of yesterday is already obsolete - and sure to become even less relevant amid future change.

Granted, it also introduced companies to initiatives that can positively impact customer contact, including work-from-home, business continuity planning, automation, and digital engagement.

The key will be transforming these initiatives from “crisis response” contingencies into permanent fixtures. How will we approach remote work once a return to the office becomes permissible? How will we approach digital channels once interaction volume subsides (yet standards for engagement quality rise)?

CCW Digital’s Market Study on Modernizing Service Experiences with AI & Digital answers these questions - and many more.

This report is your guide to navigate this difficult climate by successfully engaging customers, delivering customer experience, and continuing to engage them in the future whether in economic turmoil or not. Topics in this report includes:

• 5 crucial focus points to invest in to become a customer centric organization during a crisis
• Why organizations need to establish agility as a fundamental quality
• The importance of empathy to drive a more mature workforce now and for the future
• What is a super channel and is it better than omnichannel?
• Insight into peak operational readiness and business continuity planning
• How to maintain engagement and nurture culture when agents go remote
  

For most organizations, especially during times of pandemonium and economic misfortune, efficiently managing a team of front-line employees (or field force) is one of the most operationally complex tasks. Featuring executive interviews with insights and analysis from industry leaders, in this report you’ll learn:

• A 3-step-approach to increasing productivity through Field Service Management
• How to manage your front-line employees to increase productivity and revenue
• Real-time scheduling and operational efficiency
• How to deliver a managerial metric mentality
  

We were already adapting to a new normal - one in which digital engagement, automation, cloud technology and new expectations changed the way we thought about customer contact. Then came COVID-19, which added immense urgency to these initiatives. Robust work-from-home and AI strategies became essential rather than admirable. CX objectives also changed, with companies, agents and customers reconsidering what they wanted to get out of interactions.

Is your contact center technology helping or hurting in your quest?

Contact center technology is not delivering on its promise and may in fact be creating additional effort and frustration for agents and customers. Our new Market Study uncovers this research. More importantly, it reveals how to rethink the technology landscape to achieve unprecedented customer contact value.

Topics include:

• What are the biggest contact center objectives, and what role is technology playing?
• What are the biggest mistakes when it comes to contact center technology?
• Are internal power struggles hurting contact center technology?
• Is automation living up to the hype?
• Is journey mapping transforming CX?
• What are the most important factors when investing in new tools?
  

We in the customer contact space know this lesson better than anyone. The majority of us play catch-up when it comes to adding contact channels, gathering customer insights, implementing new technology and empowering agents, leaving a select few to reap the rewards of customer centricity.

Let this Market Study on the Contact Center of 2025 be your instrument for the future. Yes, it explores the lingering challenges and stereotypes we need to urgently address. It does not, however, dwell exclusively on the past. It also looks ahead, considering how automation, omnichannel engagement, customer data, emerging technology and cross-industry benchmarking will forever change the contact center landscape.

Though unwise, it was very easy to ignore calls to develop a business continuity plan during periods of fortune. Thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, companies have seen the consequences of their inactivity. It is time to rethink the approach, not only to support work-from-home in the near-term but to ensure your CX remains strong in the face of future risk.

Technology should be easy. That premise holds true when we look at smartphone applications and all they’re capable of doing: photo editing, banking, stock transactions, weather forecasts in 30-minute increments, plus browsing and purchasing anything from anywhere across the globe. Often, however, “easy” is not the way we would describe the systems and applications we depend on for work -- especially in a call center.

As they continue to adjust to unfortunate circumstances, brands are scrambling to keep their customer experience intact. For many, this has been a significant challenge. The Q1 & Q2 climates took a toll on many businesses, demonstrated by market fluctuation and economic circumstances customer experience and financial analysts haven’t seen since the crisis of 07-08. To mitigate these challenging economic times and achieve some semblance of business continuity, contact center solutions have never been more important.

A while ago, it was very easy to ignore a business continuity plan (BCP), since many of us took for granted our business’ profitability, steady markets, engaging office cultures, and to put it bluntly, success. Thanks to that complacency, many are quickly forgetting what success tastes like.