Voice biometrics, gamification and video technology have been hot topics in the customer service industry in the last 12 months, thanks to various webinars, opinion pieces and blog articles. However this does not necessarily translate into a willingness to invest in the technology according to respondents from a survey Call Centre Helper recently hosted on our behalf.
Incorporating results from over 100 contact centre professionals, when asked what was on their technology wish list in 2015 only 4.8% responded with voice biometrics, 5.8% responded with video based technology and just 7.7% responded with gamification tools.
What’s on your technology wishlist in 2015?
Despite the high profile of these products, it appears that web-based technologies and some of the more tried and tested applications are coming out top. Web chat leads the way with nearly a third of respondents having it on their wish list, followed by customer feedback at 26.9%, web self-service at 26% and agent coaching and quality monitoring tools coming in at 25%.
Analyst Insights
Steve Morrell, Founder and Principal Analyst at ContactBabel offered his own insights on the findings “the most popular technologies on people’s wish list for 2015 are not all new. Agent coaching, quality and performance tools have been around for a long time, but the changing nature of contact centre work – more complex, longer calls as well as increasing multi-channel work – means traditional ways of measuring success and quality are changing.
There are some newer technologies as well – notably web chat, which is rapidly growing in popularity with customers, although it as yet only accounts for less than 3% of inbound interactions. It does offer a somewhat cheaper alternative to telephony, especially if it can mix virtual (automated) and live web chat, and is a quicker option than email.”
What should technology investments deliver?
When respondents were asked what they wanted an investment in technology to deliver for them unsurprisingly the top answer was ‘improve the customer experience’ at 62.3%, followed by improving first call resolution at 45.3% and better understand the voice of the customer at 41.5%. Clearly some technologies will be better suited to meeting these goals than others.
Voice biometrics and gamification are still relatively new to the contact centre market and with gamification the deliverables tend to focus more on internal improvements around employee engagement and better business performance. Voice biometrics on the other hand helps improve processes, speed up call handling time and protects both the business and customer against fraud.
This is not really the first time this has occurred, speech analytics technology followed a similar path. Seven or eight years ago there was a lot of initial hype and excitement in that area but it has taken time to gather momentum, people want examples of where technology is working well and delivering tangible results for others before they’re willing to invest.
Steve Morrell notes “one of the most interesting findings in the report is that there are so many solutions and products which are catching the imagination of the industry. The strong growth in multi-channel and mobile, as well as the opportunities for deep insight given by analytics means that it is no longer a case of contact centres just trying to do the same things more quickly.”
This article was syndicated from Business 2 Community: Latest Customer Service Technology Shunned
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