UC Roundup: COVID-19, Stay-at-Home Prompt Call Center Evolution

The COVID-19 pandemic required a contact center evolution as customer service rose in importance and demand skyrocketed.

With people quarantined at home, the only communication channels were via phone, chat or email. Contact centers, in particular, were put in the spotlight as consumers strived to connect with businesses across the nation.

Contact centers reported a 37% increase in demand during the pandemic.

The old, traditional call center methods of the past gave way to innovation centers. This further revealed the need for investments in technology and solutions to manage workload and the customer’s journey.

So what will 2021 bring in terms of the continuing contact center evolution? How will the role of a contact center agent change post COVID-19?

We spoke with Tim Eyre, CMO of Aceyus, a contact center solution company, about the continuing contact center evolution.

Channel Partners: How has the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the contact center industry and the agent’s role in contact centers?

Acevus’ Tim Eyre

Tim Eyre: There have been significant changes in the contact center, including increased demand from customers, plus agents and teams being forced to transition to working remotely.

CP: What role has technology played in the contact center evolution to meet changing customers’ needs during the pandemic?

TE: Having the right technology with the ability to quickly adapt to the changing conditions has been more critical than ever. Contact center teams need the right technology stack to enable them to engage with customers through phone, chat and email at a minimum as the world evolves at this rapid pace.

CP: When it comes to contact center, will there ever be a return to the way things were before the pandemic hit? If not, why?

TE: The short answer is no. However, I do believe many contact center teams will have the option to return to an office environment. There will be tighter precautions in place, more cleaning and safety measures executed while many teams and companies will adopt and embrace remote work.

CP: 2020 presented numerous challenges for contact centers, as with all businesses. What can we expect to see in the year ahead?

TE: Digital transformation will take a more active role in contact centers moving forward. The teams that are able to realize how valuable the data collected inside the contact center is will have a leg up on their competition. And we will start to see increased separation from the early adapters from the rest.

CP: How will the contact center agent’s role shift moving forward?

TE: Contact center agents will see the value of their roles increase as there will be more cross-training to enhance their skill set. They will also be able to have added insight into their performance against expectations, how to be more operationally productive and receive more comprehensive coaching as their leaders will be equipped with enhanced data to improve the efficiencies of their teams.

8×8 Rolls Out Winter 2021 Release

8×8 this week unveiled new contact center, voice communications, chat, meetings and CPaaS product enhancements to improve engagement.

8×8’s winter 2021 release adds new features and functionality, key partnerships and …

… integrations that offer customers the ability to:

Meghan Keough is 8×8‘s global vice president of product marketing.

8×8’s Meghan Keough

“The latest 8×8 enhancements highlight the benefits our partners’ customers can gain by having an integrated cloud contact center and communications product from a single provider,” she said. “According to Metrigy Research, companies integrating cloud communications and contact center with a single provider saw substantial benefits when compared to those using multiple providers.”

Being able to sell a single-vendor, integrated cloud contact center and communications product gives partners more offerings that they can bring to their clients to deliver more value for mutual customers, Keough said.

“With this release, 8×8 partners are able to better help how their clients monitor and coach their distributed contact center agents or sales teams through the use of 8×8’s quality management and speech analytics for both inbound and outbound customer engagement,” she said.

The number of partners selling integrated cloud contact center and communications grew by more than one-third year over year.

Microsoft Teams continues to see unprecedented growth and adoption, Keough said. Therefore, 8×8 Voice for Microsoft Teams provides partners with a distinct competitive advantage. It presents upsell as well as add-on services opportunities.

“8×8 Voice for Microsoft Teams is significantly differentiated from what any other vendor offers today,” she said. “[It offers] an enterprise-grade, easy-to-administer global telephony direct routing solution for organizations that keeps the Microsoft Teams experience unchanged for end users.”

8×8‘s global cloud approach allows it to continually inject new, innovative enhancements into its integrated contact center and communications product, Keough said. That makes it easy for organizations to engage, work, manage and optimize interactions between employees and customers.

Uniphore Solutions to Strengthen Contact Center Customer Experience

Uniphore, a conversational service automation (CSA) provider, has added its new U-Trust portfolio and U-Assist Assurance solution to its portfolio.

These new solutions improve all contact center interactions from start to finish. They strengthen the connection between front-end customer experience and backend fulfillment through robotic process automation (RPA). They also improve contact center security through agent verification and data security.

The U-Trust portfolio includes two solutions. U-Trust Agent is a verification solution that uses a voiceprint to authenticate agents. U-Trust Environment protects sensitive customer data.

Using RPA technology, U-Assist Assurance tracks promises and commitments made by agents in real-time during the call. It aligns expectations with the customer following the call and manages fulfillment post-call.

Umesh Sachdev is Uniphore‘s co-founder and CEO. He said the solutions align with contact center evolution needs.

Uniphore’s Umesh Sachdev

“As contact centers and business process outsourcings (BPOs) worldwide look to address the future of work, one of the critical factors will be how they ensure they can build customer trust with respect to security and privacy,” he said. “With the U-Trust portfolio, Uniphore customers and partners can now deliver a frictionless and ongoing agent verification to ensure the agents are who they say they are, and also ensure agents do not see or hear any sensitive customer data. This will drive increased customer trust and reduce contact center fraud.”

The pandemic has also accelerated …

… business and digital transformation in the contact centers, Sachdev said.

“With U-Assist Assurance, Uniphore customers and partners will be able to augment automation in the contact centers leveraging RPA, thus improving the customer experience and driving better agent performance,” he said.

When a customer calls in to schedule a technician visit, they aren’t placed on hold. Instead, they receive the information immediately based on the call transcription, AI and RPA. This improves the customer experience. From an agent standpoint, they eliminate the need to log in to different systems and have information presented to them immediately.

Uniphore surveyed more than200 contact center professionals in the United States last month. Among them, 84% felt it would be valuable to have automatic tracking of promises made by the agent.

Avaya Unveils Latest Co-Innovation with Google Cloud

The Avaya OneCloud CCaaS and OneCloud CPaaS portfolios are now available with Avaya AI Virtual Agent Enhanced.

These new, human-like automation features improve customer experience and contact center efficiency. The expanded conversational AI capability leverages Google Cloud Dialogflow CX. In addition, it’s part of Avaya’s ongoing integration of Google Cloud’s Contact Center AI (CCAI).

With Agent Assist, Avaya‘s machine learning algorithms can be applied to Google Cloud CCAI to determine the next best action by the agent. It delivers the right information, step-by-step guidance and knowledge articles to enhance the customer experience.

Google Cloud Insights combined with Avaya AI use natural language processing to identify call drivers and sentiment. That helps contact center employees and supervisors learn about customer interactions to improve call outcomes. Recommended responses and best actions then drive desired outcomes.

With AI Virtual Agent Enhanced, human-like automated bots interact with customers, offloading the live agent until the optimal time. It then transfers all context gathered to the agent.

Eric Rossman is Avaya‘s vice president of technology partners and alliances.

Avaya’s Eric Rossman

“Avaya and Google Cloud are delivering AI innovation that is making organizations more agile, more responsive and more capable of meeting the needs of today’s everything customer,” he said. “Being first to integrate Google Dialogflow CX as part of Avaya Virtual Agent Enhanced is providing Avaya OneCloud CCaaS and OneCloud CPaaS customers with a unique advantage in tailoring and customizing each experience and redefining what the customer journey looks like.’

Delivering AI continues to drive growth in Avaya’s cloud solutions, and is making a real difference with customers, Rossman said.

“Contact centers are often businesses’ front line for delivering great customer experiences,” said Shantanu Misra, head of product for Dialogflow at Google Cloud. “Dialogflow CX brings new, advanced capabilities to virtual agents, helping contact center teams better prioritize customer needs and ultimately improving customer satisfaction.”