Analyst Perspective: The Bigger Picture

Customers often reach out to agents only after trying—and abandoning—self-service options. Frustrated customers in heightened emotional states value genuine interactions that quickly and accurately address their concerns. Communicating with clients seamlessly across channels, providing agents with the same intuitive, automated experience from their home or office, and using advanced technology to improve self-service and live agent interactions improves CX, lowers resolution time, and delivers more customer loyalty and sales opportunities.

Achieving optimal contact center agent productivity has become a balancing act between meeting increasing customer expectations and controlling costs. Understanding and then separating issues best addressed via automation versus those that need human interaction can reduce costs and enhance CX. For example, contact center solution providers such as Verizon have products that can centralize data, generate insights, automate tasks, and direct the appropriate interactions through self-service wherever possible. Providers can quickly implement these cloud-based solutions to provide end-to-end data security, help ensure data privacy compliance, and scale with business needs. Judiciously applying new tools and technologies moves contact centers from being efficient to becoming highly effective.