Glimpses of the Next-Gen Contact Center

Introduction

Earlier this month I had the opportunity to speak at a conference in New York City on the "The Future of Call Center Technology," or Next-Gen Contact Center. There are some dynamics taking place at this moment that are creating a "perfect storm" around a Next-Gen Contact Center. They include:

• Social Media integration
   
• Mobile users
   
• Speech Analytics
   
• Cloud-centric Contact Centers
   
• Video integration
   
• Next-Gen UC integration

All of the above provide hints of what the Next-Gen Contact Center will look like.

What We Already See

We've already seen adoption of Contact Center technologies over time, some of which include:

• CTI integration
   
• Call recording, including screen scrapes
   
• Scheduled callbacks
   
• Post call survey
   
• E-mail response queries
   
• Web response queries
   
• Data mining
   
• Speech recognition
   
• Speech to text

History says that it takes approximately (up to) 10 years for a new technology to become mainstream in the commercial market segment. We currently see mobility and social media way ahead in the consumer segment of the market, in fact, in the consumer space we cannot seem to get enough of either of these areas.

Both social media integration tools and speech analytics have been introduced into the Contact Center environment over the last 36+ months, and in many cases, just beginning to see adoption now. When recently polled in an ad-hoc survey, it was cited that just 10 percent of those surveyed are beginning to use these technologies. In the end it's about embracing the value of these new technologies and incorporating it as a process and function into your Contact Center.

Next-Gen Customer Service

I drafted a definition of Next-Gen Customer Service, as follows:

"Next-Gen Customer Service will provide elements of instant feedback, rich context, collaboration, higher customer engagement, handling calls from/to any device, and utilizing all UC tools to provide a customer experience that is rich, rewarding, and a delight. In this era Customer Service will know no bounds."

In my opinion, elements of the Next-Gen Contact Center will help complement the definition above, including:

• Cloud Everywhere - accessing a Contact Center rep through a cloud-based service will be the majority of customer service calls in the near future
   
• Real-time feedback on quality experience - through metrics and real-time feedback, Contact Centers will be able to better gauge how they are performing
   
• Better analytics (Big Data integration) - Big data will have a huge impact on creating metrics and analytics for better measuring the Customer Service experience
   
• Apps Growth - Apps will continue to drive opportunities to connect directly with customers
   
• Mobility to the Contact Center - Mobile devices, including smartphones, tablets, and laptop/tablet hybrids, will become a key means to communicating to the Contact Center
   
• Video Customer Service - Video, which to date has gotten little traction in the Contact Center arena, will become the mainstay means of communication in the near future
   
• Next-Gen UC - Next-Gen UC will incorporate all of the ingredients of the current UC technologies AND , in addition, add easy to use, device awareness, identical user experience across multiple devices, powerful search, geo-location presence, and rich content (integrated to Salesforce, Google, other apps)

Some of these already correlate to current market trends mentioned earlier. Integrating mobility as a core element/strategy will help drive the Next-Gen Contact Center for the following reasons:

• It's convenient
   
• It's relevant and always available
   
• It's comprehensive (i.e., smartphones and tablets)
   
• It's the preferred media (eventually)

Enter - The Amazon Factor

Amazon.com has recently launched its Mayday button in the latest Kindle HDX, providing a video experience with a Customer Service representative unlike anything we have seen to date. Some interesting Contact Center components included with the Kindle Mayday button include:

• A 15 sec SLA - A 15-second SLA is the new defacto for answering a Kindle HDX "Mayday call" (industry standard defacto for a Contact Center is either 80/20 - 80 percent of calls answered in 20 seconds). Using this statistic alone, Amazon clearly is setting the bar for a new level of customer service and customer experience
   
• Multi-Channel Web query - Through a private Amazon portal, the individual is querying an Amazon customer service rep, similar to a Web query
   
• Video/voice - Uses video over IP to connect a customer service representative, not a telephone call. This means from a customer interfacing viewpoint proper lighting, seating, dress codes, for a customer service experience different than the standard "telephony call." From a technical viewpoint, it must include all elements of a great video call, including bandwidth, minimal latency, jitter, pack loss, availability, and as many elements of QoS as possible
   
• Real time help - Help is no longer just a Help key or connection to a set of Help links as in today's "Help" environment; instead, Mayday brings real-time help by a trained customer service expert to provide help to the customer in real time
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• Collaboration - both the customer service rep and yourself will be able collaborate with one another and share screens of the Kindle HDX
   
• Device Take-Over - Kindle HDX customer service representatives will be able to take over the Kindle HDX with the user's permission and provide real-time on-screen help and fixes for various customer requests
   
• Tracking success/metrics - Amazon will leverage metrics for call length, SLAs, customer feedback, and other metrics to measure the success of the Mayday button and the Amazon customer experience. Note that the call is video (vs. audio) and expected call length will likely be higher than the industry defacto of three minutes for a voice-only call (based on dynamics of customer greeting, solving an issue, and consumer response).

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has been quoted regarding the Mayday button as the company's new "Wow" factor - at the intersection of "customer delight" and "deep integration through the entire stack." The new Amazon technology incorporates "hints" of the Next-Gen Contact Center by incorporating video, collaboration, multi-channel, and a hard-to-beat new industry SLA. It also incorporates elements of the earlier defined Next-Gen customer service, including instant feedback, rich context, collaboration, higher customer engagement, handling calls from/to any device, and utilizing all UC tools to provide a customer experience that is rich, rewarding, and a delight. While we do not know all of the Contact Center tools used at Amazon, be rest assured that video, metrics, and ERP and CRM will be among those facilitating the Amazon customer experience.

Good News and Bad News

The good news is that we are entering the Next-Gen Contact Center arena, and in the early-adopter stage. The bad news is that if these technologies are not on your organization's roadmap (even longer term), be ready for your competitor to adopt and have on their own roadmap.

It's time to begin to look at those elements of the Next-Gen Customer Service experience and Next-Gen Contact Center to maintain and enhance your company's customer service position in the marketplace. It's also time to facilitate creating your own Next-Gen Customer Service Strategic Plan, incorporating many of the elements and technologies mentioned in this post, with a planned rollout for optimizing and incorporating these next-gen tools to bring a Next-Gen customer experience to your customers.