July 23, 2015
To no one’s surprise, a recent study found that contact centers are playing an increasingly important role in business strategy. But more importantly, the study also revealed that “CIOs will have to work more closely with business partners to integrate a proliferation of customer engagement channels and disparate IT systems.”
That's the word from The Wall Street Journal, which took a deep dive into research giant Deloitte’s (News – Alert) 2015 Global Contact Center Survey.
“Nearly all survey respondents—96 percent—said their contact center operations were expanding, according to the survey of 300 businesses on five continents,” the Journal he said. Business growth and customer experience demands were the two main factors behind that expansion, but they were far from the only ones. Still, the growth was worth noting.
“In 2013—the first year the survey was conducted—62 percent of respondents said that the customer experience delivered through the contact center was a competitive differentiator; this year, that figure rose to 85 percent,” the Deloitte findings showed.
Andy Haas, director and leader of the customer operations practice at Deloitte, added to the discussion by noting a change in reporting structures. For example, in 2013, only 37 percent of respondents said their contact centers reported to a single department. Today, that number stands at a strong 74 percent. ”That’s a big jump,” Haas told the Journal. “Holding a single leader accountable for contact center performance underscores its importance to the organization.”
The survey also cited other figures. Respondents expect growth across all contact center channels, primarily for simple inquiries. That growth is expected to come via the Web (83 percent), via email (80 percent), and via mobile (77 percent). For complex inquiries, the figures shift slightly toward voice (68 percent), web chat (55 percent), and email (53 percent).
Looking ahead, software-as-a-service (SaaS (News 
– Alert)) solutions will likely be the technology strategy of choice for contact centers. “Respondents were most likely to use SaaS CRM today, while they expected to see the biggest increase in SaaS options for workforce management, social media, and mobile over the next two years,” the Journal noted. And Deloitte’s Haas added, observing that cloud-based systems could lead to further integration issues. “Cloud offerings make it easy for the business to deploy a system quickly without IT involvement,” Haas said. “Suddenly you wake up and find you have 50 different solutions supporting customer engagement.”
A chart showing Deloitte’s Top Ten insights is available HERE.