For some, 2023 will be all about curious, fleeting trends – like serving TikTok butter boards or fashion in this year’s it color, Viva Magenta. But as market leaders at NICE, we’re far more interested in what will be happening this year in the contact center.
Rapid and ongoing advances in internet technology are changing the way we all do business. As 2023 unfolds, you want to prepare for the contact center trends that are having – and will continue to have – the deepest and most wide-ranging impact.
Hint: Keeping up with all the changes has everything to do with interaction recording.
Accelerated transition to the cloud
You know the deal. COVID-19 hit and social distancing restrictions sprang up nearly everywhere in the world, with contact centers – like many others – suddenly shifting en masse to remote work. With that, the work-from-home/hybrid model was born.
Now, traditional on-premise applications and workflows just don’t seem to cut it anymore. Which is why over the past year or so, there has been an accelerated transition to cloud-based solutions, designed to provide constantly up-to-date, maintenance-free alternatives.
Naturally, some enterprise-grade customers are concerned about the migration and seeking a way to do it gradually and safely. We hear you. We fully understand the fundamentals and the need for caution in the contact center – which is why we designed NICE Cloud Recording for seamless transitions with maximum data integrity.
The omnichannel evolution
Another big trend we expect is contact centers continuing to seek out solutions and methods that support increasingly sophisticated voice and digital customer interactions.
At first glance, this may be surprising – after all, as more digital options come along, you’d think voice communications would get less attention. Plenty of trends have come and gone.
But in fact, digital and voice are very much complementary and relevant.
According to a study of consumer interactions, 78% of people use more than one channel to complete transactions. This is also reflected in the contact center, where 95% of agents use both voice and digital channels during the same shifts.
Customers may love the convenience of some digital channels for routine issues, but studies show that 95.5% of them want the option to speak to a human agent when they feel it’s necessary. Voice communication is being used to address the more complex, sensitive, and trust-based issues.
Rather than becoming less important, customer calls have actually become more important than ever before.
To meet customer expectations, then, you’ve got to be able to engage and record them on their channel of choice with something like NICE Cloud Recording – a true omnichannel solution that supports over 30 digital and voice channels, allowing seamless transitions between self-service and agent-assisted options, with no lost information.
A maze of regulations
Just when you thought nothing could be more complex than keeping up with what’s in today… we looked ahead to the vast, virtual maze of global regulations that will apply to contact center activities in 2023.
Privacy regulations in the United States are at an all-time high. Also, 88% of contact centers report they are getting data requests from their customers. Many companies are responding by increasing investments in tools to protect customer data (both current and past) and to ensure regulatory compliance.
NICE Compliance Center was created exactly for that purpose, providing NICE Cloud Recording with enterprise-grade data security and uncompromising adherence to market standards (including CCPA and GDPR). The solution also includes ongoing system monitoring for serviceability issues and a strict change control process managed by top experts.
Artificial intelligence for real people
AI may be one of the sexiest trends that will be hitting us in 2023. Once your contact center is transitioned to the cloud and omnichannel communications are captured, you’ll need analytics to better understand your customers – ideally including artificial intelligence for more accurate, proactive results.
In fact, recent data suggests 55% of companies have accelerated their AI adoption plans. The goal is to improve customer experience and increase efficiency, by including among other things, the use of digital self-service options, freeing up human agents to handle more complex issues.
NICE Cloud Recording is integrated with CXone, our unified customer experience platform. The Quality Management Analytics component of CXone gives you automatic granular analysis of each interaction, so you can optimize service quality and target agent coaching.
The 360 megatrend
Given all the moving parts and trends, many companies are looking for 360-degree contact center solutions. That is, they want an easy, one-stop-shop for all aspects of their communications – from digital to voice, from recording to analytics, from front office to back office, and across the customer journey.
Both inspired and intuitive, this is The Complete Trend Package. The Mothership. The Trend to End All Trends.
The most common 360 solutions in the industry now are CCaaS (contact center as a service), UcaaS (unified communications as a service), and CPaaS (communications platform as a service), which can be implemented independently or in combination. The ongoing and accelerated transition to the cloud, where nearly any application can be shared as a service, has made the 360 trend possible.
And NICE Cloud Recording can be the most integral and valuable part of your contact center’s move to more comprehensive solutions during the digital transformation we’re seeing in 2023. Lingering long into the future, past the point where trends come and go in the blink of an eye, this trend, at least, is here to stay.
Contact us today and transition to the future with NICE Cloud Recording. Learn more.