The BPO sector has been through massive changes over the years. Since it first gained popularity in the late 1990s, the developments in technology and skills ensured that it never looked back. Fast forward over 30 years, the pandemic ruined the growth and stability of almost every business industry. All of this did not include one – the call center.In fact, besides just being stable itself, it kept other sectors in good shape.
For example, the retail sector had a hard hit. So, the entire pressure was on e-commerce to serve the entire population that went remote. Now, it would have been impossible for e-commerce to manage such a huge scale-up in demand had it not been for the contact center services outsourcing. The BPO industry strategized and implemented almost every operational process, be it lead generation, marketing, sales, or customer support.
The BPO sector experiences newer technological developments every now and then. Now that the world is getting over from the pandemic, the sector has already shown signs of embracing newer technology. We have already started noticing signs of the new trends, indicating what the future holds for the BPO industry.
Having made the perfect buildup, let’s walk through the future trends that the contact center services outsourcing industry holds.
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Video Chat
Given the way the demand builds up and the development of technology to support it, it might not be long before we see full-fledged video chat support. Though not full-fledged in nature yet, video chat is still used in extending support on a closed and in-house setup and in the B2B sector.
However, video chat might be extended to the B2C sector in the years to come. We already have technology that offers omnichannel support – call and live chat. The preference to choose between the two lies in the customer’s hands.
So, the time video chat for customer support will be possible. It will be included in the omnichannel network along with call and live chat. The customers will have the option to choose any one of the options they prefer, considering the depth of their issue.
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Increase in Live Chat Support
Live chat is already a sensation now, as of 2021. However, the system is still under a lot of developments, which are targeted at enhancing its effectiveness and productivity. At the moment, around 40% of all the customers prefer contacting brands through live chats over social media or even emails.
Live chat support ranks at a satisfaction rate of around 73%, which is great considering that it isn’t a full-fledged system yet. To draw a comparison here, the satisfaction rate for phone call support is just 44%. Nevertheless, the customers received live chat support services well, and they will surely continue to grow with the development of technology further.
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Growth of Mobile Trends
We already know that the smartphone trend has been on the rise for a very long time now. As a result, almost every business sector is working towards offering convenience to the users/customers that prefer the mobile platform.
This by no means indicates that desktop preference is going down. You should know that the total time that users spend on desktops is still higher than on mobile. However, future call centers will start implementing contacts through mobile devices. This means the infrastructure for contact center services outsourcing would need to improve to a great extent to implement features like web calling, email contacts.
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Internet of Things
IoT is a growing sensation of the decade. Not just in the B2B sector, but the B2C sector has been a great customer for the Internet of Things. IoT makes connected living very simple using electronic devices, sensors, and many other home appliances and wearable.
Now, if you are wondering how the BPO sector could make use of connected living in the coming future, let’s take a look at an example. Imagine you have a smart television that is a part of IoT, which it has some fault in the electrical parts. It would send out a signal to the customer service to tech support department as a call for help. This would then initiate the process of troubleshooting the problem.
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Hybrid Model
Though there are many questions surrounding call center services in Montreal and any other part of the world that voice process contact centers may die away, the answer lies here.
In the coming years, we could see a growth in the hybrid model, which means a mix of human agents as well as bots with high levels of artificial intelligence. Though these bots would not be able to replace the human agents completely, they would act as the perfect preliminary point of contact before human agents take up the issue for deeper problem resolution.
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Cloud-based Infrastructure
By cloud-based call centers, we don’t mean the cloud server infrastructure. Instead, the call center operations would be on the cloud server, which would be accessible from any part of the world. Now, this could be implemented right away, though the lack of proper security on the servers is the reason for the holding back.
The biggest advantage of shifting to a cloud-based infrastructure for the BPO industry is the fact that it would allow remote working to the full extent. Remote working would give the agents the freedom to work from anywhere that’s convenient for them.
Moreover, it would also give the businesses the extra leverage to acquire the best talent from remote locations, too, without any restrictions of being one area of operation only.
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Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
Artificial intelligence is growing in popularity now, though it isn’t on the full-roll yet. However, its implementation in the call center sector would bring huge advances in terms of customer satisfaction. Paired with machine learning, artificial intelligence can help contact centers learn about patterns from the customer data. This help the agents know them better and choose an approach accordingly.
Customer data has a huge prospect and spawns another very important sector. This new sector is data mining and analysis from the pool of big data.
On a Concluding Note
The BPO industry has been the savior of a kind for the business world during the pandemic. The way the sector has been proactive in strategizing and implementing anti-crisis methods. Moreover, there are many advantages of the industry that other sectors took advantage of to get through the challenging times.
Now that the world is on the path to recovery from the effects of the pandemic, all of the technology is slowly being focused on making developments in the BPO sector for its future growth rather than to help the other sectors to recover.
The call center sector can use technology at full potential for its growth. So, in the coming years, we will see excellent upgrades in the way it functions.
