Digital contact centers are cloud-based hubs for communications between customers and organizations, with a focus on providing a positive customer experience. Unlike traditional call centers, digital contact centers are not limited to voice calls. Instead, they also allow communication through a variety of digital channels, such as chat bots, social media, text messages, and live chats. Digital contact centers are frequently a part of large data transformations as they allow organizations to improve their customer service and increase customer loyalty.
Digital technologies are advancing contact center transformations every day. With artificial intelligence (AI), it is now possible to customize the user experience and improve customer engagement. Most digital contact centers also have tools in place that lower handling times, as well as having interactive call flows that allow contact center agents to follow predictive patterns for enhanced customer insights. Automated chat bots can be utilized to assist with many tasks, such as checking the status of an order, or resolving customers’ issues around common problems.
Digital contact centers can expedite the process of setting up a contact center, usually only taking a few clicks to set up a new user. This enables organizations to quickly add or remove agents as needed. Furthermore, many cloud-based contact centers utilize pay-as-you-go pricing, meaning that organizations do not have to pay hefty initial fees, but can rather plan and budget for regular operating costs. Cloud security is a key aspect of most cloud-based services, and digital contact centers are no exception. There are multiple ways of ensuring that customer data is securely handled, such as encryption, firewalls, and limiting access to the data. For digital call centers, managing confidential information is a priority. Cloud services can ensure that they are following all relevant laws and regulations through automated processes available in the cloud.
A contact center transformation can benefit a company in a number of ways, including:
- Streamlined Support: Calls, messages, and texts can all be routed based on what the client needs. If it is a common issue, automated AI support can be utilized to quickly serve the customer. If an interaction with a live employee is necessary, the handling times will be lowered through the optimized use of automated support systems.
- Lowering operating costs: Digital data centers lead to reduced training for new employees as they are designed to be highly intuitive. The use of AI also enables chatbots to accomplish work that would otherwise require additional employees to complete. AI resolves customers’ problems quickly and efficiently. This lowers payroll costs, as well as increasing the productivity of employees by allowing them to focus on more complex interactions.
- Greater agility: Digital transformations allow companies to easily adapt to changing needs. Responsive call flows allow for optimized access to critical information and enables contact enter agents to respond more quickly. Furthermore, the ability to easily add or remove new agents enables companies to easily react to changes in the volume of contacts they receive.
- Improved analytics: Through the use of AI and machine learning (ML), companies can have greater insights into their customers than ever before. Data can be gathered from every branch of a digital call center, from chatbots to live calls, and then analyzed to better understand customer pain points. This enables companies to quickly react to recurrent problems and prevent customers from choosing to move to a new company.