Apr 21, 20224 min read

Expectation and Reality: What Contact Center Will Suit Your Clients?

Updated: Jun 6

If clients are the biggest value for businesses, a contact center is the most suitable way to retain and engage them.

Digital channels became the only way of communication with the audience because of the pandemic. Therefore, companies strive to upgrade their contact center software to make it efficient. They provide an omnichannel approach and create different ways to make their support convenient: set up live chats, chatbots, virtual agents, etc.

Following Deloitte, 75% of contact centers will migrate to the cloud and implement AI in the next two years. Managers are convinced that modern technologies can ensure a better customer experience. Sometimes, they believe that moving with time is all they need to satisfy clients.

Here, we will discover whether the above tech rush is enough to provide client-oriented attention and support. Or maybe the audience is waiting for some more? Scroll down to get to the root of this issue.

What Contact Center Do Companies Want to Build?

Let's imagine a perfect contact center for companies. What is it?

This software should be flexible, highly scalable, and intelligent, considering trends and relevant demand. Moreover, it should be oriented toward convenient communication channels like social media platforms.

Companies want to reduce the level of agents' involvement in customer support, replacing it with chatbots and virtual agents operations. They often bet on video chats, believing that face-to-face communication will support the quick resolution of any problem.

Enterprises shift customer relationship management and IVR systems to the cloud and perform legacy modernization to get accurate analytics, interaction recording, management of knowledge, and workforce. In addition, they implement 5G IoT to increase the speed of service provision.

Putting it all together, the perfect contact center:

is cloud-based
serves a wide range of digital channels (while reducing the number of direct interactions with agents)
handles a large number of requests simultaneously
supports 5G, IoT, AI, AR/VR technologies
requires minimal agents' involvement
provides basic support via a voice assistant or a chatbot

Wow, it's not easy to create a perfect contact center. Companies should care about dozens of components and obstacles. Anyway, they continue to invest their resources to surprise customers, collect more valuable data on their behavior and reduce operational costs.

Well, I'm sure they will succeed in the last two points. But what about customer experience?

What Contact Center Will Satisfy Customers?

Unlike businesses, customers don't chase tech accomplishments. Instead, they need real-time assistance, live communication, and a quick solution to their issues. Of course, it's up to companies how to satisfy these needs. But enterprises shouldn't lose sight of their customers to pursue innovation and a better position in the market.

The contact center your customers will like:

is highly scalable and microservice-based
supports all communication channels convenient for your audience
uses bots, virtual assistants, 5G, IoT, AI, AR/VR in cases when they help both customers and the company achieve goals
works owing to people (agents), applying efficient software to provide quality support

A Couple of Lessons Helping You Create Client-Oriented Contact Center

Lesson 1. Do the contact center you can afford. Do it, thinking about clients. Do it perfectly

Super-powered contact centers are not suitable for all. Sometimes, they fit just companies that launch them and vendors creating software for them.

Recently I faced some difficulties in communication with one global flight company: it changed my flight time.

To confirm my intention to fly considering the new condition, I had to contaсt with customer support in any convenient manner.

I saw the available video-chat service on its website and decided, 'yes, that's it!' Anyway, that service didn't work at all. I tried to call via smartphone, but the line was always busy.

I solved my issue somehow. But that difficulty taught me that companies shouldn't follow trends; they should create 100% quality contact center software suitable for their audience.

Lesson 2. Only a human can understand another human

Admit that we remain old-fashioned despite the digital era. Sure, the perfect contact center looks great. But the case is many users are annoyed by machine answers. They don't help clients.

Consequently, customers ask the bot to switch to the agent after losing a few minutes of valuable time. The solution is simple: only a human can provide customer-centric support.

There is an excellent neo-bank in Ukraine named Monobank. Sure, it provides agile, client-oriented financial service. But its customer support agents are its real pride. They can resolve customer issues quickly. They keep going "singing" your favorite song with text messages once you've written the first line. They can joke, sympathize and cheer. For customers, it matters much more than ten super-powered intelligent virtual assistants.

It doesn't mean that bots aren't efficient. Following the Insider, about 40% of internet users prefer interacting with chatbots to virtual agents. Anyway, don't ignore the role of agents for your clients.

Make your agents your main asset. And support them with robust and intelligent software. Unfortunately, only a few companies get their priorities right.

Afterwords

The best solution for companies, in this case, is the golden mean. Your task is to combine the ideal and real model of the contact center in such a way as to satisfy customers and company needs. It is a quite difficult task that requires time and investment. But the result is worth it.

Are you looking for a reliable vendor to build or upgrade your contact center? Let us know! Our specialists will apply their expertise to create robust, client-oriented software for your business growth.