- 31.03.2015
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Marzena Szulakiewicz
- Categories: contact center / call center, technology
According to the Global Contact Centre Benchmarking Report 2015, already in two years the phone may cease to be the most popular channel of communication with contact center. The challenge for companies is to integrate communication channels and advanced data analytics, especially coming from digital channels, primarily with social media.
Trends in contact centres on all continents were examined for the eighteenth time by Dimension Data and made available in the Global Contact Center Benchmarking Report. The survey involved 901 companies from 72 countries and 12 sectors. Below are the main results.
The share of voice communication decreases
The universality of the digital contact, by e-mail, chat, communication in social media and self-service channels, grows vigorously in all the countries surveyed. Forecast: digital channels taken together will gain advantage over voice contact, in terms of the number of frequency of use in the contact centres, within two years. Users under the age of 40 will then be much more likely to use social media and chat than any other form of contact with service centres. Already, these two channels are No. 1 choice for generation Y (those born between 1981-1999). People aged 35-54 years with similar frequency use phone, e-mail/SMS and chat. Telephone as the main communication channel is chosen only by those aged 55+.
“Yes!” for easy and intuitive switching between communication channels
The report results indicate that users expect not only access to multiple channels of communication but also simple and immediate possibility of the transition from channel to channel. It also turns out that the implementation of additional channels without a system of integration of the user’s experience in multi-channel environment, that is namely without the possibility to connect and change the channels of communication, is one of the most common mistakes now. The user feels lost against the many possibilities of communication when not accompanied by a simple system to connect the history of communication from different channels.
Shift from voice to digital communication
There is a growing importance of customer experience analytics
Nearly three-quarters of the surveyed companies consider modern and efficient contact center as a significant differentiator against the competition, mainly because of its importance for customer experience. Hence the increasing importance is attributed to the collection and analysis of data on customer service. Still, 40% of companies surveyed do not apply analysis of service via email, chat, forms or social media, and 54% do not monitor the situation of abandonment of the self-service channel by the user, after starting to use it. This situation is particularly common in call centres and helpdesks; companies specializing in sales tend to focus on the analysis of the behaviour and preferences of customers. The biggest change in the contact centre sector in the next 5 years will be, according to the respondents, implementation and use of increasingly sophisticated analytical tools.
Positively after the implementation of cloud technology
Opinions on the impact of the use of cloud technology on business results were studied. 89% of users of cloud-based technology claimed that the transition to the cloud lowered the costs, 85.7% also emphasized the flexibility of provided solutions “I pay for what I am actually using”. 88% of respondents in this category believe that the use of cloud technology has provided new functionalities (breakdown excluding the answer “I do not know”).
An abridged version of the report is available for download on Report 2015 contact centre website.
And here in the form of infographics.
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