The transformation of the contact center has emerged as a priority for almost every organization. Changing consumer expectations, evolving market dynamics, and even new workplace structures have prompted companies to rethink their approach to managing customer experiences.
Today’s CX leaders need to embrace agile, flexible technology that can improve efficiency, enhance access to crucial data, and enable customer service across multiple channels.
Unfortunately, a true transformation of the contact center isn’t easy to implement. Some analysts suggest up to 70% of digital transformation initiatives fail, often due to poor strategic planning. However, companies can’t afford to simply ignore the need for evolution. Instead, they need to take a pragmatic approach to driving innovation, without disruption.
Where Contact Center Transformations Go Wrong
There are numerous factors that can harm the success of a digital transformation project in the contact center. The most common issues, however, stem from a poorly planned approach to technology implementation and optimization. Facing significant pressure to evolve and transform, companies are attempting to transition into a new landscape at breakneck speed, often causing a host of issues.
Three of the most common causes of failed contact center transformations include:
Moving Too Fast, Without a Clear Vision
In an era where excellent customer experiences are critical to business success, most companies are aware of a clear need to align their customer and employee experience strategies, implement new technologies, and enhance workplace efficiencies.
Unfortunately, many businesses make the mistake of moving too fast. They embrace the latest technologies from AI to automation, without setting clear goals for their transformation initiatives, nurturing strategic alignment, or fully assessing their current resources.
What’s worse, rather than making iterative changes, such as gradually adding new communications channels to an ecosystem, or experimenting with different AI tools for things like sentiment analysis, companies attempt to change everything at once. This leads to disruptions, poor buy-in from employees, and higher financial risks.
In fact, according to McKinsey, poor planning and a “rushed” approach mean that regardless of a project’s size, only 59% of digital transformation strategies stick to their budget, and only 44% deliver the right results.
Maintaining the “Rip and Replace” Mindset
To remain competitive in an evolving landscape, many companies assume that they need to eliminate their old technologies completely. For instance, organizations often see the benefits that cloud technologies can offer in relation to agility, scalability, and cost savings, and assume they need to remove all on-premises and legacy technologies.
However, many contact centers already have existing technologies that are delivering the right results. For example, on-premises call routing systems can still continue to drive value in an evolving CX landscape. Many are also linked tightly to back-office systems, leading to significant migration issues for companies that want to shift entirely to the cloud.