40+ contact centre predictions for 2014

We asked our readers what they thought would happen to the contact centre industry in 2014.

“We will see changes in call volumes”

We asked what would likely happen to call volumes with the growth in the economy and the emergence of fast growing channels like social media and web chat.

As you would expect, opinions varied, but the consensus seemed to be an increase in call volumes combined with a big increase in web chat.

1.    I think there will be a decrease in telephone contact vs. an increase in chat.

With thanks to Johan 

2.    A definite increase in social media use compared to phones and use of live chat.

With thanks to Edward  

3.    In regards to total contact volume, I agree that it will increasingly be based on live chat.

With thanks to Martin   

4.    Such a huge number of customers avoid contacting a business because they don’t want to phone them.

By giving customers extra channels to communicate with, more people will do so. This will give us the opportunity to give a more personalised service for the customers, as long as we don’t think that it means reducing call volumes.

With thanks to Phil   

5.    I still think there will be significant demand for traditional inbound, due to the complexity of customer demands.

With thanks to Dave   

6.    Call volumes will stay the same.

With thanks to Sarah  

7.    Call volumes will decrease by end of 2014.

With thanks to Patsy   

8.    There will be an increase in call volumes.

With thanks to Will   

9.     I think that call volumes will decrease due to different channels; however, you will still have the 30% who don’t use the internet.

With thanks to Sarah   

10.     Sales call volumes will decrease, while customer service will very likely to increase without more self-serve options.

With thanks to Nikki       
   
11.     I believe chat will increase. However, the reduction of calls in 2014 will be minimum.

With thanks to Suzanne   

12.     There will be an increase in both calls and social media contact / messages.

With thanks to Ivar       

13.     There will be an increase in call volumes that will lead to more knowledge transfer to customers on multi-channel, which will in turn reduce 2015 call volumes.

This is because the public lags behind organisations in the uptake of technology.

With thanks to Sharon   

14.     I believe call volumes will remain flat across 2014 until customers have faith in the new varying mediums as they are developing more quickly than people can adapt to.

With thanks to Danny   

15.     Increase in call volumes will lead to a decrease in personal chat.

Businesses will be outsourcing their staff and focusing more on online service and support.

With thanks to Emma   

16.     Call volumes will increase in the public sector.

With thanks to Sean

17.     Call volumes will either decrease or stay the same.

With thanks to Marcia   

18.     If we get the service right in other channels, calls should decrease. But if we don’t, they most certainly will increase.

With thanks to Sarah

“The focus of the industry will change”

There was quite a discussion about the changing nature of our industry.

19.     We will see an increase in app-development, tailored to centres, enabling direct connection with customers without going through a website.

With thanks to Perry

20.     Within my company, we are focusing on self-heal/self-service and automation, essentially empowering the end user.

With thanks to Evan   

21.     Personalised and proactive notifications/contacts will increase.

With thanks to Kevin

22.     We will move away from using the call centre as the major sales medium as web/trade counters increase; the call centre will lend itself to accommodating projects/trial teams for stakeholders under our business umbrella.

With thanks to Nikki   

23.     We will see the multiplication of automatic actions in call centres (manual actions that trigger more and more automatic logs) and a shift of focus from productivity to value-added service without increasing the cost per contact.

With thanks to Roxana   

24.     Companies will decrease their budgets for customer service through outsourcing, and will focus on self-service channels (in most industries).

With thanks to Iulian   

“An agent’s job role will change”

25.     We will witness an increase in the complexity of transactions for live agents, and simple transactions will disappear almost completely from the live agent.

With thanks to Els   

26.     We will see an increased use of shared-service contact centres, meaning cross-skilling and up-skilling advisors and a requirement from technology to provide more information and more solutions.

With thanks to Patsy  

27.     We will see the development of virtual contact and service organisations.

With thanks to Sharon

“We will reassess how we analyse our customers”

28.     We will see a huge contact centre shift from traditional internal metrics (Service Level, AHT) to customer-based measures such as NPS/NES and FCR.

With thanks to Mike   

29.     We will witness a shift from manual analysis of why customers have to contact the call centre to analytics tools and an increase in voice biometrics solutions.

With thanks to Mike  

30.     On the back of the increase in contact medium, companies will invest in customer insight teams to analyse and recommend improvements based on what customers are saying.

With thanks to Nikki

31.     We will see organisations investing more in customer feedback survey and analysis so they can mould their service offering to their customers’ needs rather than following the pack or what the latest ‘industry’ must-do is.

With thanks to Sandra

“We will see changes in technology”

32.     We will see a migration from ‘point solutions’ for multi-channel contact to more of an integrated suite providing common routing, reporting and desktop applications.

With thanks to Daniel   

33.     Working from home will be made a lot more accessible, especially during the bad weather.

With thanks to Sarah           
   
34.     We will see greater use of flexible wrap-around virtual resource to complement fixed head count in call centres to extend hours or deal with peak demands.

With thanks to Sharon   

35.     Big customer support networks will support/promote mobile data costs being reduced/improved in the wake of direct chat/video support solutions.

With thanks to Perry

36.     Increased cost for infrastructure in 2014 to accommodate increased network traffic as a result of video and picture message implementation.

With thanks to Sandra

37.     We will see the death of the company “newsletter” mail-out, as companies move to phone-friendlier platforms i.e. Twitter/LinkedIn for news shouts.

With thanks to Perry

“Our customers will take the lead”

38.     Constantly connected customers will expect service 24/7.

With thanks to Sarah   

39.     At least one major brand will suffer a major loss of business (and/or major shift in share price) as a result of poor service or an incident because of a wave of negative feeling via social media.

With thanks to Nick  

40.     Improved CSAT scores as we open up the methods of interacting with customers and providing more relevant information back to them.

With thanks to Evan

41.     Methods to engage employees will deliver the greatest impact/improvements in customer experience.

With thanks to Will

42.     Consumers will expect personalisation with companies they already deal with and will expect such things as free shipping for being “VIP” customers, just because they are on a company’s contact list.

With thanks to Marcia   

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These predictions were taken from our Contact Centre Predictions for 2014 webinar.

Click here to view the replay.