As contact centers are becoming more and more necessary to address customer concerns, businesses are saving money by hiring their own agents and bringing customer support and lead generation in-house. 

Call center software emulates all of the features of the classic call center without the need to invest extensively. This convenience is creating some interesting trends, especially as they pertain to call center value. More than 46% of sales organizations are making the shift from outside, field-based sales structures to the inside sales model. 

Omnichannel support and AI features are critical when it comes to increasing the productivity and efficiency of a business. Let’s take a look at some statistics that illustrate how industry trends in the contact center are beginning to bring some noteworthy benefits.

Sources: First Research

 

The Rise of the Cloud Contact Center

In years past, it was virtually required for businesses to outsource to third-party contact centers because of the high costs involved. An on-premise contact center includes costly hardware, and you’ll also have to purchase expensive licenses and manage infrastructure setup. 

Conversely, running a cloud-based contact center means that you’ll only need to install applications on your desktops. Since the features are rolled out by the provider, adding advanced technologies for call centers like predictive dialer software and speech analytics is done effortlessly at the server and by simply requesting the feature. 

Cost-wise, cloud contact centers are more predictable since you pay the provider based on usage. If you’re not making calls for a set period, you don’t pay since most have pay-as-you-go plans. A great example of this is Five9 pricing and plans.  You also scale down or up as needed. With on-premise centers, you end up with a set cost no matter how much you use the center.

Cloud contact center stats highlight some of the important benefits of running a cloud-based contact center by showing that:

  • Cloud contact centers are 27% cheaper than on-premise models.
  • 35% less downtime is experienced in most cloud contact centers.
  • 73% of cloud contact centers cite that the cloud provides increased uptime, which is a primary driver of adoption. 
  • 72% of survey respondents cite that access to applications that would be much more costly is a chief motivating factor for moving to the cloud contact center model.
  • 70% of contact center users state that security and compliance are motivating factors for investing in cloud technology.

Sources: Talkdesk, Aberdeen, Forrester

 

Call Center Customer Service 

Using contact centers for managing customer service is a great way to ensure that every customer is being treated as if they matter. Remember, the first impression that you make is the one that sticks with a customer. The initial call will determine whether or not they continue doing business with your company, so agents need to be knowledgeable and trained to solve issues quickly during the initial point of contact. 

For a contact center to be successful, the agents need to build an emotional connection with the customers so that they trust what they are being told and believe that they matter as a customer. Poor customer service helps you lose customers. Here are some statistics that help to show just how important customer service in a contact center is to business:

  • 95.7% of contact center professionals view customer satisfaction as the most important metric. 
  • 67% of customers will pay more for great customer experience. 
  • 84% of customers prefer to be treated like a customer, not a number to reach a quota for the day. 
  • 70% of customers crave a seamless process when reaching out to a brand on any of their customer service channels. 
  • 58% of customers say that customer service affects the brand that they choose. 
  • 86% of customers will continue to deal with a customer service agent that they are emotionally connected to.
  • $75 billion is lost by businesses annually due to poor customer service. 
  • 89% of customer service representatives agree that customers are likely to share both positive and negative experiences.
  • 88% of customer service professionals believe that customers have higher expectations than in the past because they are more informed.
  • Only 12% of customers believe a company that says they put customers first.

Sources: Microsoft, Forbes, Salesforce, Hubspot

 

Omnichannel Contact Centers Increase Efficiency

An omnichannel contact center is a contact center that expands past simple voice contact. Modern customers want to use more than just their phones to reach out to brands, and cloud contact center software often embraces these customers. In addition to customer calls, SMS, email, website-based live chat, and video calling are all possible in an omnichannel contact center. Since most providers offer this feature, rolling out features for omnichannel customer service is a relatively quick process.

Here are a few omnichannel stats that will help you understand their contact center value:

  • 66% of consumers use an average of more than three or more touch-points for contact with their favorite brands.
  • 92% of organizations that view customer experience as a differentiator offer multiple contact channels.
  • 59% of people prefer brands that respond to customer complaints on social media. 
  • Over 35% of customers expect to be able to contact the same customer service representative on any channel. 
  • 54% of customers connected with a business via email. 
  • Chat agents handle two or more concurrent sessions at once – making them more efficient than voice-only agents. The average contact resolved in chat costs 76% as much as a contact resolved in a voice channel. 
  • On average, web-submitted and email contact is much cheaper than voice – typically around 81% of the cost of voice contact.
  • 66% of companies use live chat for B2B and B2C contacts.
  • 41% of consumers prefer live chat when contacting customer support.

Sources: Marketing Week, Ameyo, Microsoft, Zendesk, Forrester, ICMI, Zoho, Kayako 

 

Contact Center AI Features Increase Productivity

The best contact center features to manage and make receiving calls more efficient include auto-dialers, call recording software, monitoring tools, IVRs, and auto-attendant phone systems.  When these tools are used properly, they improve a call center’s overall customer service. Auto dialers improve the overall output of an outbound call center by making dialing more productive. Monitoring tools ensure that all agents are on the same page when communicating with a customer. Auto attendants and inbound and outbound IVR systems help route the customers to the department that they need to reach.

AI has become more important in contact centers, and even a limited AI that can decipher what the customer needs can make the initial interaction a better one. Some of the statistics that explain these features and the place of artificial intelligence in the contact center are:

  • 42% of survey respondents said that they would take their business elsewhere after a frustrating auto-attendant experience through a contact center. 
  • Auto Dialers provide 200 – 300% more productivity per hour compared to agents dialing by hand. 
  • 8 out of 10 businesses have implemented AI as a customer service solution on phone calls.
  • 25% of customer interactions will integrate chatbots or virtual customer assistants in 2020.
  • There is a 61% improvement in customer satisfaction in companies that combine AI with human interaction.
  • Agents who work with AI have experienced a 69% improvement in their satisfaction working at a call center.
  • Call centers have reported 40% increases in traffic to AI-powered call assistants between February and April 2020. 

Sources: High Tech Communications, Call Center Helper, Oracle, Gartner, Markets and Markets, Forrester, MIT Technology Review

 

Call Centers Present Unique Opportunities for Growth

Contact centers are on the rise now, and in the next year, 46% of global contact center decision-makers project their contact centers to grow 5% to 10%. 13% of call centers experience a combined annual revenue of more than $25 billion, so if you are not making use of a contact center, now is the time to consider how it could positively affect your business. 

It’ll help you improve customer service by addressing customers more directly, and it’s a great way to save on costs. These centers are even able to reach international markets when you use virtual phone numbers. Whether you are looking for inbound, outbound, or omnichannel contact center software, use our comparison tables to learn more about your options.

Sources: Forrester, Statista