1. Problems your contact centre is
likely to face in 2015
By www.CallCentre.co.uk
While industry experts debate
the latest contact centre trend,
here are five challenges that
your contact centre is likely to
face in 2015 – and what you can
do about it.
We’re now three months into a new year and life in most contact
centres will be business as usual following the flood of exciting
predictions that filled the media at the start of 2015. Its possibly a
good time to take stock and review those highbrow speculations about the state of the multi-channel contact
centre, consider whether 2015 really is the year the Voice of the Customer takes off and whether the industry
really is putting the customer experience at the heart of their contact centre. While industry experts debate the
latest contact centre trend, here are five challenges that your contact centre is likely to face in 2015 – and what
you can do about it.
1. Even more customers will turn to social channels to vent their feelings – and you won’t have an
effective strategy to stop them
Customers are increasingly realising the power of social media and more and more dissatisfied customers are
turning to twitter to ‘jump the customer service queue’ and resolve their enquiries quickly and effectively. To
avoid a potential disaster brands need to focus on satisfying their customers via traditional channels. This might
sound simple, but unless contact centres focus on metrics such as FCR, then there will always be a risk that
dissatisfied customers jump channels and turn to social media to vent. All too often twitter is seen as a fun way to
broadcast messages about your brand, but companies need to remember to take customers seriously across
every channel. Or the last laugh could be on your brand reputation.
2. Your board will ask why your multichannel strategy isn’t working.
All too often the addition of new digital channels fails to product an increase in customer satisfaction. In fact, in
many cases it seems to lead to an increase. The real key to investing in a multitude of channels is not simply
offering them, but ensuring that they’re joined up effectively; your customers want to switch seamlessly between
channels and always experience a human interaction – ideally having to repeat themselves as little as possible.
Yet our recent research found that while nine in ten offer more than three channels, and just under half offer
more than six, just one in ten have a clear strategy in place to integrate these channels and have successfully
implemented the right systems and processes to meet it.
3. You will realise that your First Contact Resolution strategy is failing because you have no way
of measuring repeat contacts on other channels

2. Customers don’t simply expect a range of channels, but consistency and continuity between them. Failing to
deliver a joined up experience will not only have a negative impact on the customer experience, but it could also
drive up call and email volumes alongside increased levels of customer frustration. Most contact centres
have quality monitoring programmes to measure agent performance. They collect lots of data about contact
centre metrics, but rarely combine the qualitative and quantitative data to really understand what’s driving
customer behaviour. With more channels being added to the contact centre mix it’s vital that all channels have
the investment, support and structure to perform optimally. This means having a 360-degree view of the
customer journey.
4. Some of your best agents will leave – and you will have no clear idea why
Ok this is not a new problem, but its time to look at in a new way. One in three of today’s contact centre workers
have a degree, which means they have been trained to think and to take responsibility for their own learning. Yet
contact centre processes are designed to do the exact opposite. You don’t need to pay a consultant lots of
money to understand why agent churn is so high. The most effective way to increase motivation in your contact
centre is to free up contact centre managers to spend time coaching and mentoring agents. This really should be their
highest priority and engaging employees at all levels to take control of their own performance is the most
important step towards empowerment. If you make this a high priority in 2015, it is likely that your agent retention
will increase and your customer satisfaction scores will almost certainly improve as well.
5. You will have at least one conversation with your marketing department about the customer
journey.
New research from Salesforce confirms that not only do 88% of UK marketers plan to increase or maintain their
marketing budgets for 2015, but they are also increasingly shifting their focus into new territories, including
customer experience, journey mapping and social media engagement. If your marketing department has not
already ventured into contact centre territory then you can certainly expect this to happen in the very near future.
The big question you should be asking yourself is whether your contact centre is ready? Of course, in reality the
marketing department and the contact centre really should be natural bedfellows, rather than “frenemies”.
Whichever way you look at it, this latest trend represents the biggest opportunity yet for your contact centre to
demonstrate its strategic value to your organisation.