Future of The Contact Centre – In Rude Health I’d Say

The teaser for this event proclaimed that contact centres are at a crossroads. Either ascending in value to become the beating heart of the organisation. Or presumably absorbed into some form of Borg like automation, courtesy of RPA and AI fuelled self-service.
Reflecting on what was presented, the jury’s still out. Although on balance there was more mojo on ‘humans being amazing’ theme. That said, the intense conversations with vendors in the break out room suggest we may hear much more about the impact of AI technologies on customer engagement in future conferences once the POCs have been landed.
Meanwhile it was a great mix of speakers and topics.
The first segment of the day comprised two sources of research into customer behaviour and contact centre performance interspersed with a fascinating insight into how customer service is evolving at Microsoft during Satya Nadella’s watch.
Nicola Millard started with a round up on customer behaviour and what matters in terms of satisfying expectations. It confirms what I certainly spend time emphasising in my omni-channel masterclasses. Low effort trumps all. Live assistance is best for when situations are complex and emotional. Self service and proactive for everything else. In terms of modalities, the favoured text channel is chat (although I’m sure BT’s next research report due Q4 this year, will point to the rise in messaging over the intervening 24 months). Nonetheless, voice remains a firm favourite and not just for older cohorts. Especially as a means of escalation when so called digital options (app or web) fail to deliver. Thank you Nicola, a great scene setter.