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Consumer demand for self-service has only intensified during the pandemic. Nearly two-thirds of CIOs (65%) have seen an increase in the use of self-service by customers or the general public, and 79% expect that usage to continue to grow, according to the Gartner CIO Agenda 2021. Already, some eight out of 10 enterprises today offer at least one self-service app, Forrester has found.

The events of the past couple of years took a strange, unexpected toll on the labor market. During the lockdown, unemployment was high, and workers clung to their jobs. However, now that things are getting (somewhat) back to normal, a significant percentage of American workers have decided not to go back to work.

Shawn Smith, a system analyst at nonprofit health care company Cambia Health Solutions, works mainly with customer service teams. When he stepped into his role more than two years ago, Cambia’s quality evaluations were completed via a recording application and then documented in Word, Excel and OneNote. The organization’s quality program became an immediate focus for Smith, he said.

For years, we’ve been championing the idea that modernizing to an all-in-one cloud platform to power your contact center was an urgent “must-have.” The benefits of agility, flexibility, cost, reduction, and access to rapid innovations seemed obvious.

♪Oh, the weather outside is frightful♪… and so are the wait times for customers in the contact center! The snow has started falling and decorations are popping up in storefronts around town. This can mean only one thing…’tis the season for e-commerce mayhem! With customers choosing to do their shopping online instead of braving the crowds of shoppers, the human element of shopping at a brick-and-mortar store has largely disappeared. Speaking with a contact center agent might be the only time a customer ever deals with a real person, replacing the traditional salesperson and customer service interactions. CXone makes sure that these experiences remain genuine and personalized no matter which channel they are on.

For all the challenges the workforce has faced during the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been a few shifts that are actually good news for employees. In early 2020, millions of employees became full-time remote workers, a first for many of them—and for many contact centers as well. In an industry that has typically been reliant on in-person facilities, nearly 75% of contact centers now allow employees to work from home, with nearly four in 10 saying they will definitely continue agent work-from-home programs for agents and another third say they probably will continue them.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has transformed organizations across industries, and perhaps nowhere are we seeing its transformative powers so clearly as in customer relationship management. AI is increasingly enabling organizations to improve customer service, improve customer loyalty and free customer service agents to focus on higher-value tasks. In doing so, AI unlocks a wide range of benefits, from reduced costs and improved employee retention to higher revenue and increased customer satisfaction.