We’ve seen a lot of significant changes in the communication industry over the last decade or so. People have begun to move progressively away from ‘on-prem’ systems and explore the flexibility of the cloud and “as-a-service” offerings. Communication has connected with collaboration in workstream tools and applications. Even new and disruptive technology has appeared with the rise of AI and IoT. The contact centre hasn’t been immune to these changes. Akixi, an award-winning provider of cloud-based call management and call centre analytics, have been in a great position to view the transformation of the marketplace. With that in mind, we spoke to MD Bart Delgado about his predictions for the future.
What Do You Think Is Coming Next to the Contact Centre?
Right now, it seems that a lot of people are still focused on audio calls at the heart of their communications system. Though video and other solutions are out there, the primary push remains around the telephone system. However, Bart told me that Akixi believes multi-media is going to become more important, particularly as younger demographics like millennials take over.
“It’s about being able to measure and monitor more than just your telephone calls. You need to have the same control of everything – from chat and email to social media. We see this becoming increasingly important in the contact centre.”
How Will Multi-Media Emerge in the Contact Centre?
Whether you call it the multi-media contact centre, or omnichannel it doesn’t really matter. For Akixi, the future is all about being able to connect with your customers wherever they are.
“Ultimately, wherever your customers prefer to communicate, they should be able to connect with you. Omnichannel is the next wave of opportunity for resellers. At Akixi, we’re going to be doing some interesting stuff with multi-channel and mobile soon.”
Of course, the key to any implementation is making sure it’s clean and easy to adopt. Bart told me. “It has to be rapidly deliverable – no matter how many channels you’re working with. At Akixi, we’ve always worked to make sure that we can get systems up and running in a matter of hours. People don’t have time to wait weeks and months anymore.”
Do You Think the Move to Omni-Channel Will Connect Contact Centres AND Collaboration?
For some companies, the contact centre is increasingly emerging as an “extension” of the UC platform. I asked Bart whether he thought collaboration tools and the contact centre would work more closely together in the future.
“Ultimately, collaboration is just another tool. If it’s helpful for an agent, then I can see it playing a part in the future of how agents work. Really, it just comes back to this one simple rule: The Customer is king. Whatever a customer wants from you, you should be ready to give.”
While it’s impossible to predict where any market will go in the next couple of years, Bart and Akixi believe that a broader, more customer-focused contact centre could be the defining feature of the successful modern business.
