Contact Centers Are Evolving Into Something Very New
For contact centers, the pandemic upended everything—from agents to costs to service levels. Much of the agent population will continue to work remotely indefinitely. As a result, many organizations find themselves confronting a gap in their ability to handle customer engagements. Multiple factors, including heightened customer expectations, hiring constraints in the Great Resignation and flat budgets, all contribute to the gap in capacity to which centers must adapt.
This required many centers to invest in infrastructure to accommodate remote agents and supervisors while also accelerating digital transformation projects. Even before the pandemic, digital transformation in support of changing customer dynamics was a top priority. It was propelled by the rise of digital contact channels and the need to better manage the interactions and data that result from them. The pandemic appears to have enlarged the pool of companies exploring digital transformation projects, including the largest operations as well as mid-market businesses.