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Delivering customer service at the lowest possible cost for years can give the necessary edge to a contact center. However, this requires a long-term strategy and focus on relevant technologies. Across industries, one sees the need to switch to a less people-dependent end-to-end process. Based on the logic we humans use, machines may be used to build their own intelligence from data in the near future. Within the next five to ten years, interactive tasks will become much more efficient than we are used to seeing around us. Here are five developments worth taking notice of!
Machine-to-machine communication
Customer service in the after-sales arena is one of the most time consuming and costly aspects of doing business. Replacements and service costs cannot be avoided in order to maintain customer satisfaction, but streamlining the process undertaken is possible with advanced technology. An IT setup including a cloud-based sensor in the customer’s product and a notification system for both ends of the channel is a rudimentary example of how the customer can register a complaint without actually making a call. The customer service at the brand’s end thus becomes completely automated and easily scalable too.
Implants in human bodies
This futuristic device may not be widely accepted yet, but in various industries, such as healthcare and automobile, smart implants help brands identify their customers’ biological characteristics, abnormalities, and pick up data to respond in prescribed situations, especially when the person concerned may be incapacitated. Thus, data can be provided to relevant bodies to take action immediately.
Robots (voice and action)
The industry is looking at a massive change when it comes to replacing the intelligence of customer-service executives with computer algorithms. Voice-and-language recognition tools have shown their advantages already. However, in industries like manufacturing and retail, the set up has to be supplemented by a mechanical aspect. Once a query or complaint is registered at the brand’s end, it may require a sequence of field actions (such as shipment and load bearing). Thus, robotic capabilities become inevitable at the customer-facing level.
Personalised video communication
Contact centers prefer communicating with their callers and leads in detail. The process of auto-generating videos depending on an individual’s requirement is emerging as an attractive option for brands which are seeking intelligent systems to develop visual communication. If a person needs to know about a new product, a product-maintenance process or any other know-how, a query can trigger the animation of specific content. The video will then be shared with the concerned person over the cloud to an authenticated device.
IoT-compatible IT setups
Automated processes that the customer service will evolve into are necessarily related to a worldwide information system, which may rely on competitor data, financial data, and multiple devices. A device-agnostic IT platform is the minimum requirement to transition and plug into the ubiquitous computing environment of the near future. A contact center can maximize the use of data and come up with accurate solutions in spite of overwhelming complexity, especially without requiring a heavy expenditure on the payroll.
For an in-depth understanding of how technology in Contact Centres evolved over the last few decades and what the future has in store, click The Evolution and Future of Contact Centre Technology for the Whitepaper.