Service reimagined: AI creating dynamic end-to-end possibilities for a thriving contact center

As customer service becomes more dynamic, contact centers play an ever-evolving role in creating exceptional customer experiences. The past decade has highlighted the deep connection between a thriving contact center, happy customers, and a robust bottom line.

The back office, customer relationship management systems (CRMs), customer journeys, workforce augmentation, and digital transformation are key to shaping the future of contact centers. Only having the right technology can create a predictable world so businesses can see real value and excel.

Let's explore how these components both support and challenge contact center teams, dive into some analyst projections for the coming year, and bring it all together with an overview of some advanced tools that can support a multitasking, customer-obsessed team.

Back office: The workforce brain

Effective back-office processes are crucial for ensuring smooth operations and high-quality customer interactions. Your back office needs to be able to think ahead and adjust when things get complex. Inefficiencies in the back office can result in delays, errors, increased operational costs, and poor customer experience.

According to the Managing the Modern Contact Center: Current Employer Trends Report, 60% of contact center managers say the number of customer channels agents handle has increased, also boosting the number of touchpoints the back office needs to support. Each of these has different response expectations and patterns, making it difficult to create a unified scheduling approach.

Other back-office challenges exist, including:

• Non-sequential workflows: Digital interactions often don't follow a linear path. For example, an agent might handle multiple chats simultaneously or switch between different types of tasks. This non-sequential nature complicates the calculation of staffing needs and schedule optimization.
• Variable workloads: The volume of digital interactions can fluctuate significantly, influenced by factors such as marketing campaigns, product launches, or external events. Variability makes it hard to predict demand accurately and schedule staff accordingly.
• Deferred response times: Unlike phone calls, which require immediate attention, digital interactions like emails can have deferred response times. This means agents might handle these tasks intermittently, adding complexity to workload forecasting and scheduling.
• Concurrency and multitasking: Agents often manage multiple interactions at once, especially with chat and social media. Understanding and optimizing concurrency requires sophisticated scheduling algorithms that can account for overlapping tasks.
• Integration with traditional channels: Many contact centers still handle traditional phone calls alongside digital interactions. Integrating these different types of interactions into a cohesive scheduling system is challenging.

Addressing these challenges involves investing in advanced scheduling and forecasting tools, improving data integration, and continuously refining processes to adapt to the dynamic nature of digital interactions. It’s worth it, however, to face the obstacles head on: 70% of contact center leaders say customer satisfaction has increased as new support channels have been adopted.

CRMs: The heart of customer interactions

CRM systems are the center of modern contact teams. A consolidated contact center agent desktop creates faster, more personalized customer service. built to scale as you grow.

These platforms integrate and manage customer interactions across multiple channels, providing a unified platform for phone calls, emails, live chats, and social media. CRMs enable businesses to maintain consistent and personalized communication with customers, improving efficiency, and enhancing the overall customer experience. Key features of CRMs include omnichannel communication, customer data management, call routing, and real-time analytics.

Make informed decisions based on visibility into multiple CRMs and instances to improve customer experience faster and easier.

Choosing a workforce management (WFM) solution that can integrate with and support your CRM is important. The global CRM market is projected to reach $80 billion in 2025, driven by the increasing demand for integrated, AI-driven solutions. Workforce augmentation is expected to see significant growth, driven by the increasing need for efficient workforce management solutions.

Mapping customer journeys: The customer experience nervous system

How well do you understand your customer journey? Taking control of customer experience allows teams to react in real time and adjust approaches when needed.

The customer journey encompasses all interactions a customer has with a contact center, from initial contact to issue resolution. By mapping out these touchpoints, contact centers can identify pain points, streamline processes, and enhance the overall customer experience. Effective customer journey mapping helps in reducing customer effort, improving satisfaction, and fostering loyalty.

Establishing appropriate KPIs is critical in best tracking and understanding how the customer journey changes over time. With the growing number of service channels in play, about 56% of contact center managers say they’ve added additional metrics to better capture the full customer experience.

Digital transformation: Creating a seamless contact center

Digital transformation is reshaping contact centers by integrating advanced technologies like AI, analytics, and cloud systems. This transformation enables contact centers to provide more personalized, efficient, and proactive support.

Digital transformation not only enhances customer experiences but also empowers support agents with better tools and insights. Done well, digital transformation improves the wellbeing of both agent teams and customers. As contact centers move towards becoming omnichannel hubs, the importance of digital transformation cannot be overstated.

Ongoing digital transformation will adjust the metrics contact centers focus on. Traditional customer service metrics like average handle time (AHT) and first call resolution (FCR) (around 65% of contact center teams utilize both of these) will live alongside a broader set of metrics that capture the quality of customer interactions. These include data points like time to resolution, average touches, average touch time, and channel contacts handled.

Addressing customer pain points in the back office

Customer pain points in the back office often arise from inefficiencies including long wait times, data inaccuracies, and lack of support. Addressing these issues requires focusing on process improvement, technology upgrades, and eliminating data silos, as disconnected systems can lead to inconsistent customer information and fragmented experiences. Ensuring a seamless and consistent experience across all channels is challenging but crucial, as inconsistencies can confuse customers and diminish their trust in the brand.

Companies that fail to adopt omnichannel strategies will struggle. Customers will continue to value having multiple options for interaction and seamless transitions between channels will be crucial for maintaining satisfaction.

AI will help provide personalized experiences, automate routine tasks, and enhance overall efficiency. This naturally leads to improved CX through better integration of channels and more personalized interactions. Companies will need to ensure that customer data is consistently recognized and utilized across all touchpoints. Based on that improved integration approach, resources across the contact center will be better allocated.

Projections for 2026 and beyond: CRM, WFM, contact centers, and digital transformation

As we look to the future, several trends and projections are defining contact center strategy:

• Digital transformation: Digital transformation will continue to be a priority, with a focus on developing AI-ready employees and improving data governance. Organizations will leverage AI to drive workflow evolutions and enhance customer experiences.
• Contact centers: AI-powered automation and hyper-personalization will become standard, with real-time data driving customer interactions. The focus will be on unifying agent workflows and enhancing the overall customer experience.
• CRM: AI and machine learning will dominate the CRM landscape, with over 70% of CRM systems expected to incorporate AI capabilities. The global CRM market is projected to reach $80 billion, driven by the demand for integrated, AI-driven solutions.
• WFM: The financial outlook for workforce management (WFM) shows a robust and expanding market. The workforce management market is expected to reach $19.35 billion by 2030, fueled by the rising adoption of cloud-based solutions, the necessity for workforce optimization, and the growing emphasis on employee engagement.

Bringing it all together to create a NiCE world

The integration of back-office operations, CRMs, customer journeys, digital transformation, and workforce management is essential for creating a seamless and efficient contact center environment. As we move ahead, the focus will be on harnessing the power of AI, data, and digital transformation to drive innovation and growth in the contact center industry.

By implementing these key elements, contact centers can ensure they are well-equipped to meet the evolving needs of their customers and thrive in the competitive landscape. Playvox by NiCE addresses forecasting, scheduling, and real-time challenges in several ways:

1. Complexity of digital channels: No more struggling to fit a one-size-fits-all approach to every channel. Playvox by NiCE provides tools to forecast interaction volumes across various digital channels, ensuring that each one's unique response time expectations and interaction patterns are considered. It creates a unified scheduling approach that integrates all digital channels, making it easier to manage diverse interaction types.
2. Non-sequential workflows: Struggling to nail right-size staffing in a non-linear world? Allow for real-time staffing adjustments, ensuring that contact centers can respond swiftly to changes in interaction volumes and patterns. The platform supports multi-skill scheduling, enabling agents to switch between different tasks and channels seamlessly.
3. Variable workloads: Create schedules that fit your team and business needs, together. AI can predict demand accurately, even with fluctuating interaction volumes due to external factors like marketing campaigns or product launches. The Dynamic Capacity Planner helps contact centers move from static, annual forecasting to a more integrated, ongoing process. This tool supports long-term workforce forecasting and dynamic staff planning.
4. Deferred response times: For less urgent tasks, fit them into agent’s schedules in a way that makes sense. Schedule tasks with deferred response times, such as emails, in a way that optimizes agent availability and workload distribution. The platform allows agents to handle deferred tasks intermittently, balancing immediate and non-immediate interactions effectively.
5. Concurrency and multitasking: Playvox by NiCE's sophisticated scheduling algorithms account for agents managing multiple interactions simultaneously, optimizing for concurrency and multitasking. It ensures that overlapping tasks are scheduled efficiently, preventing agent overload and maintaining service quality.
6. Integration with traditional channels: We’re in a digital-first era, but traditional platforms still matter. Integrate digital and traditional channels into a cohesive scheduling system, allowing for seamless management of all interaction types. The platform provides advanced workforce management tools that cater to both digital and traditional interactions, ensuring a balanced and efficient operation.

With these features, Playvox by NiCE helps contact centers maintain optimal staffing levels, improve efficiency, and enhance the overall customer experience. It understands what your team needs, and when you need it. That’s NiCE.

Explore how Playvox by NiCE can optimize your workforce.