Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2018. Read them in this 10th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
Contributed by Tiago Paiva, founder and CEO of Talkdesk
A Smart Shift for Contact Centers
As we look finish 2017, it’s a good time to gather all of the year’s learnings and look ahead to what’s ahead in the coming year. It’s been a great year for talkdesk and we’d love to celebrate our new Visionary status by sharing some of the things we’re expecting to happen in the next year. 2018 has a lot in store for the contact center industry, here are a few of our predictions:
- AI doesn’t replace humans for the next decade – No matter how customers evolve, they will still run into high-emotion situations that require the empathy only a human can provide. New AI-based tools will certainly help customers with a handful of basic tasks, but that same intelligence can be used to help agents too. For complex support interactions that involve a high degree of emotion, an AI-enhanced agent can solve a customer problem faster than that customer could self serve. Using new tools to provide context to the agents, AI can assist both sides of a support call, delivering a quicker, more satisfying experience for everyone.
Voice isn’t going anywhere – Every year we hear more predictions about how voice support will soon be obsolete. If customers start using chatbots and other support automations, they’ll have to stop using something and voice seems like an easy target. According to Deloitte’s 2017 global contact center survey, voice still accounted for 64% of customer interactions this year, four times more than any other channel. Looking two years into the future, the same survey projects voice to be about half of all communications, three times more than any other individual channel. These numbers are for total communications, it doesn’t even take into account that voice is used for the crucial, high-emotion moments that make or break customer loyalty.
Inside sales teams will double – New intelligent sales technology is giving inside sales reps a brand new level of personal information about their prospects. These tools raise conversion rate to a point that was once only achieved through field sales reps. When that conversion rate is paired with the efficiency and volume of inside sales, it’s a no brainer that we’re seeing businesses invest more in inside sales than field sales. As sales teams adopt more interactive video conferencing and screen-sharing tools, this trend will increase even more.
Cloud contact center usage rises above on-premise – The shift is inevitable, but 2018 is going to be the year that cloud-based contact centers become the rule more than the exception. Cloud technology has caught up to on-prem technology regarding security and call quality, it’s only a matter of time before the ease of management and low set-up cost persuade the last old-fashioned holdouts to switch. With all the advantages of cloud-based technology platforms and the exciting future that comes with integrations, the sooner you make the switch, the better.
Customer service spending takes off – As the struggle for customer loyalty gets more fierce, the companies that will emerge as the most profitable will be the ones that invest in providing unrivaled customer service. In 2018, video support looks promising, that’s a high-value support interaction that can be used for the types of high-urgency/high emotion situations that can solidify lifetime loyalty. It’s also time to invest in an omnichannel contact center system that seamlessly allows for multiple channels of input and output. The sooner this infrastructure is in place, the sooner companies can start collecting new revenue from these satisfied customers.
Holiday shopping will double contact center volume – Black Friday is the official start of the holiday shopping season, but a quick analysis of the retail contact centers shows that contact center volume doesn’t actually increase until Cyber Monday. That Cyber Monday spike doesn’t subside until the new year has started. Last year, contact center activity nearly doubled in the 5 weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and this year, it will only increase more and shoppers continue to shop more online and through apps. More transactions that remove the human retail associate will translate into more support center conversations where the human needs to be re-inserted to help a customer.
Whatever your company does, 2018’s technology is going to provide a lot of opportunities to connect with your customers in new ways and give them experiences that will make them increasingly loyal. Now is a great time to evaluate the types of interactions you’re having with your buyers and prospects and build processes to improve them. Good luck in the new year!
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About the Author
Tiago Paiva is CEO and Founder of Talkdesk, a hypergrowth call center software startup. Launched at TechCrunch Disrupt NY in 2012, Talkdesk has raised $24.5M from DFJ, Storm Ventures, Salesforce Ventures and 500 Startups. Talkdesk is growing 10x year-over-year, has 300 employees and 1000+ customers, including Dropbox, Shopify and Weather.com.
Over the past six years, Tiago has scaled Talkdesk from 10 employees to over 300 and has crossed major industry milestones including reaching 100 million calls. Prior to Talkdesk, Tiago quickly grew within the ranks as a developer at Procter & Gamble in Europe.
Tiago received a MSc in Computer and Electrical Engineering from Instituto Superior Técnico and resides in San Francisco, California.
