Will Automation Spell The End For Contact Centres?
Contact centres are often described as modern-day factories, and their employees just as vulnerable to automation as factory workers were in the early days of manufacturing automation in the 1960s.
As automation becomes intelligent, and conversational AI replaces the need for (some) human interactions, what will the contact centre of the future look like? Will it even exist? And what will happen to the people in those contact centres?
Everywhere we look, media headlines tell us that automation will take our jobs. But what if it makes us more efficient, and creates different jobs? It could even change the way we structure our working week. Simply Business is an insurance company that is trialling a four-day week in its contact centres – with everyone still paid the same amount – in an effort to boost productivity and promote good mental health in the workplace. Could this be the new normal?
Automation is also, to some extent, driving the repatriation of contact centres from offshore locations. Offshoring was all about reducing costs, and for companies based in countries where employee costs were high, it was far more efficient to locate contact centres in areas where the cost of business was lower. But now many transactional, routine customer service interactions can be automated, they are again investing in home-grown talent to deal with the more complex and higher-value customer contacts.
So the contact centre is changing again. Gone are the perceptions of factory-like conditions, with humans processing millions of the same mundane enquiries: where is my order, how do I return a product, can I change my payment method. All that can be done by bots, which are far more efficient and less prone to error than humans.
And machines can support humans, too, working with them to provide context to customer queries that lead to better experiences for both the customer and the customer service agent. They can show the relevant records from previous conversations, make sure the information the agent has is accurate and relevant, and even predict the likely outcome of an interaction. They can help agents resolve issues quickly, and complete their records efficiently and easily.
How do you achieve this? There are three steps for businesses to take:
1. Review your existing infrastructure. What capabilities do you have now, and what do you want to achieve?
2. Assess how automation can help you achieve your customer contact objectives, and how it fits your overall business objectives. Do you want to increase efficiency, increase capacity for agents to deal with more valuable tasks, and increase value, for example?
3. Evaluate your current sourcing arrangements. Are they future proof, or are they starting to creak?
The contact centre of the future will be a place where skilled employees deal with complex issues, solve problems for customers, drive value for their employees and have greater job satisfaction. Places where humans and robots work together, not against each other. Automation could just herald a new golden age for customer service.
Source: contactcentres
Industry: unified communication news
Latest Jobs
-
- Penetration Tester, UK based. Ability to achieve SC clearance
- United Kingdom
- 55000
-
Experienced Penetration tester- UK based with the ability to achieve SC clearance. On-going training and development and paid certifications / renewals. Interested to hear from all areas of penetration testing, web app, infrastructure, mobile, etc. MUST have current hands on experience delivering penetration testing. Ideally from a consultancy background with experience working with multiple clients. OSCP / CREST / CHECK / Tigerscheme penetration testing experience / certifications desirable. Apply today for more details. All information kept in the strictest of confidence.
-
- Senior Data Privacy Specialist, London. CIPT
- London
- 60000
-
REF CH7875 £60,000 Senior Data Privacy Specialist, London. CIPT Senior Data Privacy Specialist needed to help advise client on project and programmes relating to Data Privacy and compliance. UK based role. Ideally looking for someone that has a strong appreciation of technology and Data Privacy that can work with clients to develop or enhance their strategies, policies, processes and techniques to manage cybersecurity risks while enabling business driven data. Certified Information Privacy Technologists (CIPT), Certified Information Privacy Professional/Europe CIPP/E experience and or certification highly desirable. Specific experience within the healthcare industry is of particular interest. All details kept in confidence Apply today for more information
-
- Cyber Security lead Managing Consultant, Healthcare
- London
- 120000
-
REF CH7874 £120,000 Cyber Security lead Managing Consultant, Healthcare, Public Sector. UK Cyber Security lead Managing Consultant with a specialisation in healthcare needed. The Cyber Security lead Managing Consultant will identify, engage with, consult and deliver key and critical cyber focused programmes and projects into healthcare clients. To be a success in the role you will be able to identify and engage with clients building pipelines of new business opportunities. A key part of your role will be to engage with new and existing clients to win new business opportunities- this role is revenue generating. Consulting experience around digital cyber transformations, Governance, Risk & Compliance, Critical National Infrastructure programmes, Managed Detection and Response etc are key. NIST, ISO27001, etc Team management, , identifying Cyber Risk, UK based, Permanent position. The ability to achieve UK security clearance is a perquisite. All details held in confidence. Apply today for more information.
-
- CONTRACT outside IR35 - SENIOR Security Analyst level 3.
- United Kingdom
- competitive day rates
-
REF CH7873 CONTRACT 3 month rolling outside ir35 SENIOR Security Analyst level 3. London ideally- but flexible SOC SIEM experience essential. Broad cyber hands on experience should include Threat hunting, Detection, Phishing, Malware etc Scope of engagement · Managing / running BAU tasks (Organising and assigning workloads to the Tier 2 analysts) · Working with the various security tools (Creating documentation to support the use of these tools) · Support Incident Management activities (Work with the incident managers when an incident is identified) · Support Incident Response activities (Recommendations and support remediation activities without completing these activities) · Be technical point of contact to the wider business on security related issues (SME within the team on security related issues) · Train the SOC Analysts (Continuity of service - knowledge transfer to the T2 analysts ) · Working with the Security Engineers on: (Use Case Development Identifying scenarios and developing the use case for the engineering team to deploy Identifying rules and alerts triggered to be fine-tuned by the engineering team) · Recommendations for dashboard creation (Working with the engineering team to identify potential dashboards to create) · Creating, maintaining and uplifting documentation (Playbooks, Process Documentation) · Drive improvement across the estate (Support Vulnerability Management activities and provide enrichment where possible) Any of the following certifications are desirable Splunk Phantom certified admin, Splunk Core Certified Power User / Advanced, Splunk Certified Enterprise Security Admin, etc The individual MUST currently be living in the UK and be able to achieve UK security clearance. (SC) Looking to interview immediately. Arrange a call https://calendly.com/chris-holt/arranged-call-with-chris-holt-soc-role- Chris.Holt@dclsearch.com