Contact centers are playing an increasingly important role in business strategy, which means that CIOs will have to work more closely with business partners to integrate a proliferation of customer engagement channels and disparate IT systems.
According to Deloitte’s 2015 Global Contact Center Survey, the contact center is becoming more and more important to a business’ viability. In 2013—the first year the survey was conducted—62 percent of respondents said customer experience as delivered through the contact center was a competitive differentiator; this year, that figure rose to 85 percent.
That’s being reflected in the stakeholders that are responsible for the contact center itself. In 2013, just 37 percent of respondents said their contact centers reported to a single department; today, 74 percent do.
“That’s a big jump,” said Andy Haas, director and customer operations practice leader with Deloitte. “Holding a singular leader responsible for contact center performance signifies its importance to the organization.”
Almost all—96 percent---of respondents said that their contact center functions were expanding as well, because of both business growth and customer experience demands. And, they anticipate volumes to grow across all contact channels, especially in Web self-service, email and mobile.
A full 83 percent of respondents said that they expected volume growth in Web, 80 percent in email, and 77 percent in mobile, according to the survey. Voice (68 percent), Web chat (55 percent) and email (53 percent) are projected to experience the largest growth for complex inquiries.
“Basic Web and mobile self-service applications are table stakes at this point,” said Haas.
The proliferation of customer contact channels creates complexity for IT however, making systems integration a top pain point. Contact center technology includes not only customer-facing applications, but also customer interaction systems such as knowledge management and workflow, and operations management systems such as workforce management, performance management, and quality management.
“If all channels are growing, then it falls upon CIOs to cost-effectively provide the right enabling technologies for the business and, importantly, to integrate them,” the analyst noted.
Just 18 percent of survey respondents said their contact center systems were fully integrated. Half (51 percent) said they were partially integrated, and 31 percent said they were not integrated at all.
The integration issue is not simply a result of channel explosion, but also a consequence of inadequate contact center governance. “In many companies, marketing may own the social and mobile channels while operations own voice and IT owns the Web,” said Haas. “Too often, whoever has the biggest budget or screams the loudest informs the technology strategy, and things become fragmented pretty quickly. As customers demand more channels and volumes grow, that creates havoc.”
Unsurprisingly, Deloitte found that CIOs play a critical role in creating an integrated contact center strategy.
“The business will naturally drive channel and customer engagement strategies, but let IT build the integrated, cloud-led solution strategy,” said Haas. “Multichannel is here to stay. And it’s becoming more complicated. CIOs can demonstrate leadership by proactively defining integrated, multichannel solutions and working with business partners to help prioritize and deploy them effectively.”