As the trend of remote work was already underway, driven notably by homeshoring, in the customer relations sector, the health crisis we have been experiencing since 2019 has greatly accelerated this process across every industry. The contact center of tomorrow could thus incorporate this situational adjustment into a new organizational model in its own right! Meanwhile, the increasing digitalization is the second hallmark of a constantly evolving sector. Utilized by both agents and clients alike, the home office continues to revolutionize the world of customer relations. To adapt to this growing trend, the implementation of robust customer relationship management tools is essential. Omnichannel integration, artificial intelligence, augmented agents… What will the future hold in the coming years? Companies will need to break established codes while developing an omnichannel organization, incorporating the latest AI technologies aimed at enhancing the customer journey… and above all, improving internal efficiency!
A widespread shift to remote work with nuanced benefits…
First and foremost, let's emphasize the flexibility of this organizational mode. Agents remaining operational from home allows for continuity in customer relationship management services regardless of external factors.
The only downside (and a significant one) is that many companies where remote work was nearly nonexistent had to adapt overnight to this new trend. Left on their own, remote advisors no longer know whom to address or how to obtain clarifications or assistance, and when to communicate.
This naturally leads to delays and bottlenecks that significantly impact the stringent daily objectives that they must adhere to in minute detail. Additionally, isolation, lack of confidence due to the difficulty of accessing supervisory advice, and often felt isolation are all barriers to the optimal efficiency of a remote customer service center.
The result? Considerable stress for remote advisors and increasing irritability from clients, who are increasingly impatient, eagerly awaiting swift and effective responses to their inquiries.
Growing digitalization serving new needs
The role of digitalization in the contact center of tomorrow cannot be ignored. It profoundly transforms the customer relations landscape in several major aspects:
Digital workplace tools, particularly the cloud, allowing (ideally) remote workers to fully recover their work environment at home,
Conversational virtual assistants like chatbots and voicebots play an increased role, offering ever more fluidity and continually improving the customer experience.
Marketing practices, finally, serve the customer experience. For instance, omnichannel strategies offer consumers a unified journey, allowing them to gain autonomy. These practices have moved from being emerging to becoming essential, as the health crisis propelled e-commerce to the forefront of consumer habits.
The primary interest is to be able to deploy new secure tools in real time compatible with remote work, to better manage and guide remote advisor teams, easily access performance data and thus significantly enhance the quality of service provided to customers. Far from being merely a concept, such an approach is now within everyone's reach and should be developed on a large scale in the coming years!
Moreover, in this rapid evolution, artificial intelligence continually demonstrates its contribution on a daily basis. It thus helps optimize support through automation of responses provided to customers.
The same goes for remote advisors. Indeed, their role within contact centers evolves and gains importance as they possess an irreplaceable human added value. By assigning recurring and low value-added requests to conversational assistants, agents can focus on more complex interactions. The augmented advisor thus concentrates on requests requiring fine-tuned understanding and emotional intelligence that AI will never offer.
And tomorrow, virtual reality could further disrupt the customer experience offered by brands and deeply transform customer relations…
With ViaFlow, prepare your customer relations for future challenges
ViaFlow is a platform enabling the native processing of all customer relationship channels, both synchronous (voice, live chat) and asynchronous (SMS, MMS, email, social networks, etc.) within a single interface! Everything your teams need to work in optimal conditions, onsite or remotely.
ViaFlow is indeed fully accessible remotely in a completely secure manner, with a low hardware footprint. And to top it off, the hybridization of artificial intelligence and emotional intelligence to facilitate the agent's work and the client's life.
Do you want our experts to assist you with your customer relations needs? Don't wait any longer, contact us!
