9 contact center technology trends

Are you running a contact center to support your business? If so, are you up to date on the latest trends? Here are nine ways you can enhance the effectiveness and productivity of call center employees while improving customer experience.

1. Unified communications

When you integrate your voice and computer systems, you make it easier for employees to find and utilize customer information, and for center managers to monitor and help out employees when they run into a difficult customer. Incoming caller data (such as the information associated with the customer's number they are calling from) and more can help you deliver improved experiences on both ends of the line. Pop-up chat lets a manager "whisper" to the CSR's if needed. 

2. Automatic call distribution

ACD is a system that recognizes, answers and routes incoming calls to the best agent or terminal equipped to solve the problem or answer the question, even before the call is answered. It can recognize where calls are coming into the system from, and decide if it is a sales or service call or an after hours call based on configuration and number extensions. This helps companies meet customer needs more efficiently.

3. Interactive Voice Response

IVR is another automated phone system that routes calls after they are answered based on questions asked by a robot and answers customers provide by punching numbers into a keypad or speaking into the receiver. Natural language speech recognition allows the IVR to communicate with the caller and find out exactly what they need then send them to the right terminal or agent.

4. Universal queuing

If your company has many contact numbers but you want to funnel them all into the same system, a universal queue dumps all calls into a pool, letting them be answered in order of preset priority or simply by next-up, next-served. 

5. Call recording systems

Recording systems can be used to capture all customer interactions (with notable exceptions, as DialPad points out; particularly credit card information and protected health data). Call recording can be archived (historical) or monitored in real-time, allowing a contact center supervisor to deliver coaching if a call goes off script. Analytics reporting can be used in tandem with call recording to deliver extra insights. Make sure your center is following state and federal laws for disclosure and consent.

6. Intelligent callback
Everyone hates waiting on hold and worrying about being cut off or their phone battery dying. Giving your customers the option to hang up and get a call back when the next available agent reaches them in the queue can improve customer satisfaction. 

7. Workforce management software

WFM can be leveraged to forecast the volume of customer channel interactions, allowing contact center managers to scale their agents on duty in a predictive manner. This cuts down on idle seats but prevents long wait times in seasonal highs or after a product launch.  

8. Quality management  

QM applications helps managers ensure that agents are minding both internal and external policies and procedures, creating a more efficient and compliant contact center environment. (According to AmeriDial, agents should be retrained yearly on compliance protocols.)

9. AI-driven compliance

Only a fraction of most contact center calls can be monitored or reviewed, leaving gaps where compliance issues can arise. Non-compliance with state and federal data privacy laws can lead to heavy fines. Using AI-powered software to scan calls can help surface ones that may be skirting legality, and allow for fast remediation at agent level. 

Perle can support your contact center with infrastructure, and you can add tools to improve customer and employee experiences. To learn more, read our customer success stories.