At MaxContact’s ‘Afterwork’ community event, Jonty Pearce, the Founder of Call Centre Helper, shared his top three predictions for the future of the contact centre industry. While making predictions can be a bit daunting, especially in such a rapidly evolving field, Pearce believes that by examining past trends and current data, valuable insights can be gained into what lies ahead. However, he emphasises the importance of taking these predictions with a pinch of salt, as the future is always uncertain. Prediction 1 – Voice Will Remain the Primary Channel Despite the growing popularity of digit ..read more

Ginger Conlon at Genesys explains that for CX leaders now is the time to adapt and embrace artificial intelligence. Experience transformation: Moving continuously toward more personalised, empathetic interactions for customers and employees. That was the theme of Enterprise Connect 2024. And the most prevalent topic was how to use artificial intelligence (AI) to make that happen. Experts at the show agreed that the opportunity to use AI for experience transformation makes it an exciting — and rewarding — time to be in the customer experience (CX) business. Everyone from contact centre leaders ..read more

The heart of hybrid working is your office. It is where employees connect, collaborate, and learn – both in person and virtually. Your configuration and equipment choices can make hybrid meetings both easy and highly productive. Six Steps to Create an Office Designed For Hybrid Work 1. Understand Your Employee Workstyles Everyone works differently based on their role and preferences. A sales colleagues may spend most of their time on the road, a product marketer might hop from meeting to meeting, a graphic designer might dedicate their workday to their desk, and a technical writer might spend ..read more

Karina Howell at 8×8 takes a look at how you can choose the right contact centre solution for your customer experience (CX) strategy. Navigating a Sea of Options Choosing the right contact centre (CC) infrastructure for your business can be tough. The process can be time consuming and somewhat daunting as you look upon an array of options that all seem alike. But, it is actually more straightforward than you may think.. Narrowing down the options starts with understanding which CC solution is the best fit for your customer experience (CX) strategy and operations. In order to do that, however ..read more

As AI-powered contact centre tools emerge from their early, experimental status and take an increasingly important role across all areas of contact centre operations, contact centre leaders are eager to tap into and maximize its potential. A recent report by ICMI examines what contact centre practitioners are thinking about when it comes to AI-powered technology and its impact on their work. The report, The State of AI in the contact centre, provides a snapshot in time about how organizations are using AI, the pain points they hope to address using AI, and the areas they’re targeting in the ne ..read more

According to a report from the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), customer satisfaction in the U.S. rose to a score of 77.8 out of 100 in the fourth quarter of 2023—an all-time record high. This is in sharp contrast to Q4 2021, when customer satisfaction reached its lowest point in 20 years. While this is good news, it doesn’t mean that the work is done. Today’s companies face a variety of challenges in maintaining customer satisfaction, ranging from increasing competition to heightened customer expectations, outdated or ineffective technology, and the lack of an omnichannel manageme ..read more

Customer experience is an unquestionable key driver of success. It’s the golden thread that weaves through every aspect of a company’s offering, shaping customer perceptions and driving loyalty. From the insightful process of customer journey mapping, which provides a deep dive into customer interactions and touchpoints, to creating a customer-first culture within contact centres, every strategy aims at one goal: elevating the customer’s journey to exceptional heights. These seven strategies are not isolated tactics but are part of a comprehensive approach that places the customer at the centr ..read more

Ever since COVID, contact centres have increasingly invested in Artificial Intelligence (AI). In fact, according to a recent MarketsandMarkets report, the global contact centre AI market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 21.3% from $1.6 billion (May 2022) to $4 billion by 2027. AI technologies like chatbots, virtual assistants, speech recognition, Interactive Voice Response (IVR), Natural Language Processing (NLP), predictive analytics, and sentiment analysis are quickly becoming integral to contact centres’ operations. AI-powered contact centre solutions offer a way to improve efficiency and c ..read more

Regardless of the sophistication of your customer service workflow, it’s crucial to recognize that customers prefer to avoid contacting support teams altogether. The journey from locating a customer service number to enduring the tedium of waiting in a queue, punctuated by impersonal IVR messages, is an experience even the most patient among us would rather sidestep. Distinguishing between serving customers and truly delighting them underscores the contemporary emphasis on customer experience. Businesses increasingly understand that how customer service is delivered is more significant than th ..read more

Neha Gupta at Uniphore takes a look at Generative AI for enterprises and the lessons learned from the trenches. As generative AI moves from hype phase towards maturity, more enterprises are actively integrating Large Language Models (LLMs) and multimodal models into their products and realizing the challenges involved in the process. This transformative wave, spearheaded by GenAI/LLMs, represents a paradigm shift, empowering machines to process, comprehend and generate information in unprecedented ways, especially in the realms of text, images and videos. Some even argue that this revolution c ..read more