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In today’s world of text messages and email, it can sometimes seem like the call center is old technology. Yet, a recent study by Deloitte shows that, in fact, contact centers are growing in size and importance to most businesses and organizations. Deloitte surveyed 300 businesses on five continents and found that 96% of respondents expected their contact centers to grow within the next two years. They claimed that this was due to both business growth and, interestingly, customer experience demand.
Though online self-service and email remain the most popular method for making simple customer service inquiries to a business, Deloitte found that the majority of survey respondents projected the largest growth for complex inquires in the voice channel. That is to say, customers are increasingly looking to customer service representatives to solve their more complicated needs over the phone.
This reliance on the contact center for the most complex customer service questions has led business leaders to begin to view the contact center as an increasingly important factor in the customer experience. Half of the survey respondents reported that they believe contact centers play a primary role in customer retention. (For Health Plan industry respondents, this number went up to 70%.)
Deloitte analysts predict that in the next two years, cost will decline significantly as an important contact center strategic objective. In it’s place, call centers will find a renewed focus on customer experience and business insights.
