Customer revolution in contact centres under way

A customer revolution in contact centres, enabled by mobility, but fuelled by the phenomenon of social media, is under way as consumers recognise the power of Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. This is driving consumers to demand a different type of collaboration when they engage with organisations, which in turn, are rushing to provide additional service channels at the customer's bequest. While the telephone is no longer a consumer's primary point of contact with an organisation, overall interactions are increasing, making its role more important than ever.

Today, over three-quarters (79.3%) of businesses that Dimension Data polled said they now have - or are developing - an Internet presence and servicing capability. Social media and smartphone applications have appeared from nowhere to establish a significant presence, overshadowing previous emerging channels such as speech recognition. Despite the growth in Internet-based channels, traditional IVR usage is also on the rise.

A surprising one in five (19.2%) contact centres is already managing smartphone applications, while 33.1% of businesses are supporting social media - almost double the 18.6% reported in 2011. A further 14.4% expect to have a capability in place within the next 12 months, by which time 46.3% will be using Web chat to positively drive Internet traffic to a successful outcome. What's more, organisations are implementing these new contact options mainly as a result of customer demand, rather than at their own convenience.

That's according to Dimension Data's Contact Centre Benchmarking Report 2012, published today, which polled 637 contact centres in 72 countries across Asia, Australia, Europe, the Americas and the Middle East & Africa.

Andrew McNair, Dimension Data's Head of Benchmarking, says: "Historically, organisations set the tone in how they collaborated with their customers. However, the mega trends of mobility, the prevalence of Internet-based services such as video, Web chat, and social media, are transforming the way the world wants to talk to organisations (consuming services). It's the customer who's driving how, when and for what they will use each channel."

If there's any doubt about the impact of social media on contact centres, you need look no further than this chart. In 2011, 18.6% of participants reported using social media channels and this has rocketed to 33.1% in 2012. There have also been notable increases in the use of Web chat and IVR self-service, and one in five contact centres are managing smartphone application services. The role of the human agent will have to change over the coming two to three years. Multi-channel enabled and multi-skilled agents are definitely going to become the norm; it just depends on how quickly organisations can facilitate this evolution.

Customers requiring a new insurance policy, for example, can search online during their lunch hour or during their commute to find prices. They may post a Facebook comment requesting guidance from their extended networks, or they may even tweet an organisation's details that's failing to respond quickly enough. The possibilities just keep growing.

The big question now is how quickly organisations can facilitate this evolution. Adds McNair: "The challenge is considerable and the starting point is weak. Some 54.5% of providers that participated in the contact centre research said their existing contact centres are still learning and developing their traditional service channel capabilities, while only 6.7% believe their contact centres are highly advanced.

"These numbers are actually going in the wrong direction - and getting worse - as businesses struggle to keep pace with increasing technology demands," he says. There's a risk that consumers receive a wider choice for their basic wants, but that expectations for their more complex requirements are falsely set and not accommodated, unless the agent role can keep pace with and properly support the automation.

Meanwhile, 63.3% of the organisations participating in the research acknowledged that contact centre/customer care is deemed a competitive differentiator, with a further 17.3% stating they had good intentions.

But, explains McNair, organisations still need agents in their contact centres. "While it's true the majority of basic transactions are now accommodated via self-help options such as the Web or interactive voice response, contact centre agents will play a critical role in managing more complex enquires. That's because agents will need to support the contact centre's technology choices and pick up some of the initial slack that may be the result of processes that haven't caught up."