What Are The Latest Trends In Call Center Technologies?

Call Centers have always stayed ahead of technology to improve the quality of their service delivery. Having come a long way during the two decades of operations, the call center outsourcing industry has learned to constantly improve and adapt to technological advancements. The latest upcoming trends in call center technologies include the following:-

1. Cloud Computing: Call centers are not just constantly increasing the size of their data, but also integrating with diverse data types to increase their customer’s information. Cloud computing can provide unlimited storage capacity, increased up-time, and an extended ability for virtualization. Creation of Virtual Call Centers allows timely expansion in the scale of operations through remote agents who can be monitored and trained easily through virtual applications. The integration of data with social media and chat processes builds Omni – channel customer care centers. This enhances the customer’s journey by providing multiple channels of interaction, such as through smart phones and mobile apps.

2. Speech Analytics: Speech variations like sentiment, talk versus silence during conversation, tone of voice etc. can be analyzed through speech analytics. Audio mining can be used to understand the impact of a promotion, identify trends or generate other business intelligence, which can be used to trigger predetermined set of actions. This works as an effective tool in customer satisfaction.

3. Business Process Improvement: Almost all organizations are outsourcing their customer support services to engage their customers. Business process improvement in customer service is the next trend to ensure that businesses get more than just the services. The specialized knowledge of a contact center can help them in providing relevant suggestions for a specific industry, regarding optimization of operations for their clients, and thus become their strategic partner. Call center outsourcing gives a face to an organization for its customers. Contact centers have to become the brand ambassadors for clients now. The service provider should identify the quantitative and qualitative needs of their client and then create training and technological enhancement plans to meet the defined service levels. Business process improvement can be achieved by optimally mapping the process with the needs of clients, sharing the best practices and performing correct data analysis on each project. Business process improvement can be achieved by service providers if they manage the knowledge well and document their projects properly.

4. Real-time reporting: Service providers have to improve on their real-time reporting to ensure that they are monitoring their operations effectively and constantly improving their quality as per six sigma parameters. Monitoring Customer Satisfaction (CSAT), first call resolution (FCR) and Average Handling Time (AHT) are effective measures of customer loyalty. The real time monitoring of the call center can help in identifying issues, which can go unnoticed, such as the call flow and the allocated resources. These real-time reports facilitate decision making for improving performance and resolving operational issues.

5. Workforce optimization: It is important for all service providers to provide effective training to their resources. The largest share of operational cost of a contact center can be attributed to its representatives. Workforce optimization can be achieved with the help of technology and proper monitoring. Service delivery can be further enhanced with the help of better training methods.

Technological advances have been made not just in the field of customer servicing, but also in telecom billing and Operation Support System (BSS/OSS). The systems have to evolve with the advancements in technology of other related systems. Some of the upcoming trends in BSS are discussed below.

1. Integrating new infrastructure with legacy systems: It is necessary to develop methodologies that ensure integration of the new system with the existing legacy systems. The new and complex service models should be mapped to the existing systems to ensure consistent revenue generation. Without this capability, it will become very expensive and time consuming to generate revenues.

2. Collaboration supportive: The organizations form collaborative partnerships for billing solutions. The telecom billing and operation support system should be flexible enough to allow integration with other systems. The system should support multiple currencies as well, as the collaboration may be with an overseas partner. At the same time, billing has to be accurate and optimized.

3. Integrating with the new billing strategies: New age systems should not only integrate with the legacy systems, but also with the rising technologies such as eWallets and wallets. This enhances the customer’s experience and provides flexible options for payments. But at the same time, the system has to be sound in terms of quality.

4. Policy enabled service control: The system should be flexible to ensure that the billing is customized to map the policy. The system should be simple enough for users to user portal themselves. The real time information about the services should also be available for the customers to keep them updated.

It can be concluded that with the rise in technology and services, call centers have to adapt with the technology to stay in the competition, and for providing enhanced and comfortable services. The services and support systems are evolving continuously to meet and exceed customer expectations in the rapidly growing technical environment.