AI, data, digital... Nowadays, there is so much contact center leaders must strategize over.
A tricky task, and one made even more daunting by time limitations, as managers combat those pesky day-to-day issues that refuse to lay low.
Thankfully, leaders are rising to the test, evolving their people, process, and technology practices to improve customer, agent, and business results.
As they’ve done so, Puzzel has stayed hot on their heels, uncovering many fascinating trends for its comprehensive study: The state of contact centers in 2024.
The research – which will be released as a series of reports throughout 2024 - captures a snapshot of the status quo inside contact center operations.
Also, it highlights how these operations are evolving - surfacing many eye-catching insights.
To compile the report, the European CCaaS stalwart surveyed 750 contact center decision makers, unmasking the following five trends – alongside many others.
1. Contact Center Demand Climbs Higher, with Voice & Email Still Ruling the Roost
76 percent of contact centers have experienced higher contact volumes over the past year.
With an explosion of new channels – such as RCS, Google Business Messaging, and even TikTok – that is understandable.
After all, businesses increase the scope of customer engagement by expanding their channel presence.
Yet, more surprisingly, 73 and 69 percent of contact centers – respectively - reported a rise in voice and email traffic flooding into the contact center.
These statistics underscore the ever-present importance of assisted channels and indicate that customers still greatly value human, personalized interactions.
After making this point during his presentation at the recent Elevate ’23 event, Frederic Laziou, CEO of Puzzel, stated:
“Our survey also highlights the need to orchestrate automated and human-led channels to deliver seamless customer experiences.”
So, expect a heightened focus on journey orchestration in 2024, with more businesses implementing conversational AI use cases - such as gathering customer info as they wait in the call queue – to better balance human and virtual experiences.
2. Contact Center Budgets Remain Steadfast, Despite a Tricky Macro-Environment
While 2023 proved a challenging year for Bitcoin enthusiasts, Twitter, and Disney's creativity, contact center budgets have stayed strong.
Expect that trend to continue in 2024, with 55 percent of contact centers reporting an increase in their software budget.
Moreover, a staggering 18 percent of respondents note that their budgets have surged by 21-40 percent – as evident below.
Puzzel highlights several possible objectives for businesses injecting these funds into their contact centers, with pulling together fragmented agent systems together a prominent example.
Yet, also fascinating is the surge in training and development budgets, which perhaps underlines the increased complexity of contact center conversations.
Such complexity is likely the result the uptick in self-service deployments in CX.
3. Chatbot Troubles Continue with Deflection Disasters to Blame
85 and 86 percent of contact centers – respectively – express their contentment with their voice and email channels. Yet, automated channels fared far worse.
Indeed, only 26 percent of contact centers deemed their chatbot service “above average”.
Below-par technology is a factor here, with many organizations utilizing first-generation, script-based solutions, with only a little, basic natural language understanding (NLU) for AI.
However, most bot projects still stutter in their purpose, as virtual agents deflect calls to digital channels with little regard to the customer's intent.
As this trend creeps into 2024, the report again underlines the need for journey orchestration – alongside better use of intent, preference, and sentiment data – to configure smarter experiences.
