For decades, the call center has been the heart of customer service beyond the in-branch or in-store experience.
As new digital options to interact with customers have emerged, they’ve been largely bolted onto the existing call center, leading to a collection of disparate - and often dysfunctional - channels from “all-in-one” solutions.
Online chat and video, for example, have become disconnected service silos despite being managed through the same call center platforms. This legacy, phone-first approach results in disjointed journeys, inefficiencies and a frustrating experience for customers and call center representatives alike.
As a result, the call center - once the trusted facilitator - has gotten a bad rap for blocking a truly successful customer experience (CX).
Many service call centers run on traditional voice-centric infrastructure and processes designed for handling phone calls only. This dated technology makes it difficult for staff to effectively connect with customers and confidently resolve issues.
As integral as both the digital and phone support channels are, managing them as two separate solutions causes other notable problems, such as inefficient staffing and cumbersome transitions between channels.
And while digital transformation is critical, the phone experience can’t be ignored. Which begs the question, how can the right balance be struck?
One strong solution is having a single customer interaction platform that brings everything under one roof and acts as a foundation for future innovation. Here are five key reasons why companies should double down on the digitization of call centers, unifying phone and digital on a single platform.
1. The legacy call center can’t keep pace with customer preferences.
As an increasingly screen-centric world continues to influence consumer expectations, businesses have been moving toward digital-first interactions.
Yet the need for telephonic customer service remains strong. According to McKinsey & Company, 71% of Gen Z are likely to contact customer service by phone, and the percentage only rises for older generations. Unfortunately, phone support moves customers away from a more convenient digital experience, creating friction for callers and agents.
Simply offering digital options, though, is not enough.
Consider how frustrating it is for customers to begin a journey online, only to be told to call in for further support. They are often forced to navigate automated menus, wait in a call queue, and then repeat details surrounding the issue to a representative.
Exacerbating the issue, the representative often has little to no context of the caller’s previous online experience to help determine the next best step.
...the call center...has gotten a bad rap for blocking a truly successful customer experience...
As convenient and efficient as digital-first options are, many customers still want ways to speak to a live representative. Especially in a critical moment of need, such as dealing with suspected fraud or solving a loan issue. If the situation calls for it, the ability to switch to a more efficient and effective channel without losing context is crucial.
It’s also not enough to simply unify traditional phone support and digital channels like chat and video onto a single customer interaction platform.
Businesses must be able to bring a caller into an onscreen experience within the same, uninterrupted interaction to reduce friction and increase satisfaction. This approach eliminates legacy voice limitations that often trap customers in one communication channel. Additionally, it accelerates resolution and drives up conversions.
The tools and benefits of this seamless approach strengthen collaboration between customers and representatives, shorten handle times, boost customer satisfaction, and help eliminate future calls by educating customers about their digital self-service options.
A call center solution with digital functionality can equip representatives with specific context, enabling them to see exactly what the customers are doing online. This dramatically decreases handle time while improving NPS or CSAT, thanks to reduced user effort and a smoother service experience.
2. Staffing challenges are intensifying.
Recent data from Salesforce shows 77% of agents report increased and more complex workloads year over year. And 56% say they’ve experienced burnout. But higher turnover rates and increasing call volumes are not the only reasons behind staffing difficulties.
It is often challenging to manage all of the customer service channels and tools spread across multiple systems, each with its own unique management consoles to support.
Doing so requires representatives to toggle between - and sometimes even log in and out of - different systems as they manage multiple channels. Thus, making it nearly impossible to deliver fast, convenient customer service experiences that build loyalty.
Piecing together both real-time and historical insights across these various systems makes it difficult to accurately gauge operational performance. Not to mention effectively adapt to changing conditions.
Service staff must learn and leverage different applications, resulting in wasted time from the scrolling between screens. This excess time spent searching for critical operational information negatively impacts productivity and CXs.
Call center supervisors and managers struggle to meet the key call center metrics - such as handle time and wait time - that impact service levels and customer satisfaction. Without accurate data for individual representatives, effective coaching and managing is a challenge, further contributing to employee churn.
3. Multiple silos cause management challenges.
As organizations bolt on more digital service options, they need to balance staffing for high volumes of phone calls while driving adoption of digital channels.
But separate systems for voice and digital hinder their ability to switch representatives between phone and digital options to adjust for changing volumes. Additionally, it’s complicated to shift more interactions to digital when phone calls are handled on a separate platform with no way to seamlessly bridge them.
...a “channel-less” architecture streamlines engagements and equips representatives to create the right interactions at the right times.
To overcome these pain points, companies need to find new ways to optimize staffing across the channel mix to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of their contact centers.
Rather than dividing representatives among two or more separate systems, unifying them on a single platform that supports both phone and digital interactions allows organizations to staff from a common pool of representatives.
By giving live agents the technology to support customers in both phone and digital, managers can address staffing issues in real time based on heightened volume in either channel.
When the transition between channels is seamless, live representatives can focus on addressing and resolving customer issues, ultimately increasing productivity and employee satisfaction.
Such a strategy can significantly increase operational leverage and enable call center managers to more effectively build staffing plans for the entire channel mix.
4. Need to build on digital, not legacy, technology.
The traditional “legacy” call center that once met and even exceeded customer expectations has increasingly become a service liability.
For most businesses, the system is based on a phone-only service model, which is why most call centers remain completely disconnected from digital platforms.
But to support customers who prefer phone service as well as those who favor digital options, businesses need a new approach with a digital foundation versus the legacy phone platform.
The ability to include phone interactions within a broader digital experience strategy helps ensure that all aspects of the CX remain up to date.
Rather than having multiple channels for customer service, with phones separate from mobile and online channels, a “channel-less” architecture streamlines engagements and equips representatives to create the right interactions at the right times.
A single platform also reduces future compatibility issues from disparate solutions, as phone and digital CX components work in concert with one another and with core systems and processes.
Bringing everything together onto a single modern platform makes administration and management easier and more cost-effective, as organizations will have more control over the entire range of experiences.
5. Disjointed channels limit the value of future AI implementation.
The race to modernize platform administration and management reveals another critical consideration for today’s call centers: AI.
Call centers considering AI implementation will quickly find that disjointed channel systems aren’t only keeping them in the past, they’re also preventing them from keeping up with the competition.
Across the industry, contact centers are rushing to implement AI solutions, yet most traditional approaches result in disconnected tools bolted onto legacy systems. This creates the same problems as siloed channels: isolated experiences, fragmented data, and inconsistent service delivery.
Not only do these siloed solutions illuminate the friction between channels, but they also create clunky transitions between AI and human agents.
When customers are transferred to human agents, siloed solutions prevent them from accessing any context about the interaction, forcing customers to start over and repeat themselves.
Yet with a single, channel-less platform, human agents can receive AI summaries at the time of transfer. Thus, empowering them to provide superior service and eliminate customer frustration.
Organizations operating with separate systems for voice and digital will also find that their AI-powered insights are limited to channel-specific data. This prevents them from analyzing interactions across every channel for comprehensive performance recommendations and reporting. Instead, these call centers receive fragmented findings that lack context and widen the barrier between systems.
Every customer is unique and dynamic, often favoring one channel over another based on the issue at hand.
The solution lies in channel unification. When channels are unified in one seamless platform, AI technology can unlock call center insights for every stakeholder - agents, managers, and executives - regardless of channel.
For businesses evaluating AI implementation, the foundation matters. Disconnected systems will always limit AI’s potential and complicate adoption. By choosing a truly unified platform, organizations can accelerate their AI journey while reducing risk.
Future-proof the CX strategy
In order to create the effortless interactions customers crave with the digital options they want, companies must think holistically and future-proof their entire CX strategy.
This means consolidating dial-in phone calls and digital interactions onto a single platform that also supports future AI adoption. Plus, having everything integrated into one seamless platform makes the whole suite of available tools easier for service representatives to both learn and apply.
A call center platform that can facilitate transitions from phone-centric to digital-first customer service is the ideal scenario. Ensuring the platform creates a strong foundation for adopting AI that can support every call center stakeholder is even better.
Designing and implementing a unified platform to work with existing systems - and with security and compliance set in place - leads to less cost, complexity, and risk than dated phone-based systems.
Every customer is unique and dynamic, often favoring one channel over another based on the issue at hand. Implementing a single interaction platform that can handle all types of these responses is critical to create the best possible outcomes every time.
By bridging digital collaboration with phone calls, businesses can facilitate the right interaction at the right time based on the customer need, helping reduce abandonment rates, increase customer satisfaction, and lessen future support requests.
To successfully grow and compete, businesses must be able to support customers in their preferred channels, bringing together calls and digital interactions into a single experience, while creating one unified connection.