Call center outsourcing has become a common strategy for customer service in the digital age. Instead of relying on in-house teams, outsourced call centers can depend on highly-trained, specially-skilled staff without maintaining costly infrastructure costs or staffing.
These call centers rely on technology not just to answer phones—they also use it to streamline workflows, manage calls and customer interactions, and much more.
In this article, we’ll show you how technology has helped call centers go from simple phone operations to the worldwide omnichannel powerhouses of customer service. We’ll also review some of the essential call center outsourcing technologies used and trends to look forward to in the coming years.
Over the years, newer phone technology, like the addition of toll-free numbers in the ‘80s, would help call centers expand from simple queries to far larger operations. The advent of the internet marked the first significant milestone in call center technology and the integration of phones and computers. With Computer Telephony Integration, agents could multitask, consolidate customer information, and start interacting with customers in new ways.
As the ‘00s rolled in, call centers shifted from simply answering calls to customer-centric, omnichannel operations. This change brought integrations with multiple communication channels like email, web chat, and early social media sites. Customers started to expect companies to be readily accessible at all times—and this continues today, where omnichannel reigns supreme.
Cloud-based technology proved to be another massive leap for the industry, as it enabled a surge of call center outsourcing technologies that help customers and agents in various ways. These new technologies also made contact center outsourcing easier than ever before. Companies could connect with external and outsourced teams that could all communicate seamlessly with each other and their parent companies.
While we remember the old call-and-response model, today’s tech-driven operations are focused on improving the entire customer journey. The focus is now on managing operations, enhancing the overall customer experience, and streamlining internal workflows to make the process as simple as possible.
From the early days of traditional inbound centers to today's sprawling multi-channel operational hubs, the contact center outsourcing industry has changed significantly, and there’s still more to come. Let’s explore some of the most relevant technological advancements that keep call centers connected.
The transition to globally connected call centers couldn’t have been done without the cloud. These technologies provide countless benefits, enabling flexibility and scalability beyond what used to be possible while remaining cost-effective.
Without the need for on-premises equipment, companies can rapidly adapt to any fluctuation in demand and enable remote work in the post-pandemic world. Several different types of cloud-based tools are available, such as:
The era of only one line of communication between businesses and customers is over. Modern customers expect to connect to companies through social media, email, live chats, and calls. This shift to omnichannel support is critical to stay competitive and to elevate your customer experience.
While this does sound like a big ask, it isn’t as tricky as it appears, thanks to new technologies that make omnichannel implementation as smooth as possible. They can connect, store, and access data from multiple touchpoints in one central location, which helps your support agents get what they need.
So, how can you fold omnichannel support into your existing strategy? The best way to start is by maintaining consistency in your service across all channels. Customers contacting you through chat services should receive the same standard of service that they would on the phone.
After that, ensure that all the data your contact center outsourcing team needs is in one central location, including customer data. Cloud-based platforms, for example, are designed to facilitate data sharing and ease of access.
Personalization isn’t just a buzzword or a convenient option—customers are starting to expect it. In a study from McKinsey, 71% of consumers expected some form of personalization, and 76% became frustrated when they didn’t find any. These personalized interactions matter to today’s customers, and they want brands to understand their unique preferences.
By collecting and analyzing data from your customers and their interactions with your agents, you can better understand their needs and interests. You can even combine that with intelligent QA software to help you analyze it, giving you detailed insights into your business.
Once you have these insights, you can work with your teams to improve your overall customer experience by offering tailor-made experiences, even through your outsourced call center agents. Chatbots, automation, and predictive analytics can significantly impact customer interactions, making these call center outsourcing technologies essential.
IVR systems have become incredibly popular in recent years, serving as automated telephony tech that can interact with callers, process requests, and route calls to the appropriate destination without putting an agent on the line.
Elevated efficiency is one of the major benefits of an IVR system. Automatically routing calls as they come in reduces the need for human intervention in the initial stages of customer interactions.
This frees up your contact center agents to focus on more complex, time-consuming issues your customers might face instead of wasting time answering simple calls about operating hours or basic information.
Additionally, these IVR systems are incredibly flexible. You’re able to customize them to your specific business needs, whether that’s in the form of simple call routing or complex nested menus.
The ability to tailor the customer journey can significantly boost your customer experience, giving callers the power to be routed to the right department or to handle simple tasks without requiring agent assistance.
QA software offers a bird’s-eye view into your call center, so you can consistently monitor and analyze customer interactions. It helps you and your teams spot issues before they happen and elevates your customer experience.
Regulatory compliance is crucial for many industries but can be difficult to track, especially when customer service is not in-house. These call center outsourcing technologies can help agents adhere to these regulations and maintain industry standards. They can run automated audits and checks to flag potential violations. Plus, they offer detailed documentation and reporting features to help speed up audits and regulatory inquiries.
Additionally, QA technology can help track agent performance beyond regulatory compliance. Many of these tools offer real-time feedback and have coaching mechanisms built-in. Your agents can receive immediate feedback during live interactions to make instant adjustments. Some tools also include scalable call center training programs so agents can find specific information to provide additional support for less common issues.
Chatbots have become incredibly popular over the last few years, and the rise of conversational AI has made them even more useful. With them, you can offer 24/7 service to your customers for simple issues without needing a human staff.
They’re currently limited by their pre-programmed responses, but as conversational AI tools mature, we’ll see a bigger improvement and greater adoption of chatbots.
AI's impact on customer interactions is fairly significant. They can process more complex issues than chatbots while offering round-the-clock support and seamlessly integrating with your existing agents.
Companies like Google have had considerable success in the past integrating these tools into their customer service infrastructure.
Call center outsourcing technologies that can understand and respond to spoken queries are already beginning to change how companies interact. With NLP, these tools can understand and decipher human conversations and carry out tasks without needing a live agent.
Once again, Google has already shown how the technology works from a customer perspective with their Duplex AI, and many QA companies have adopted it as well.
Predictive analysis can significantly impact your business by anticipating customer service requirements. Current tools focus on speech and text analysis, but as AI has matured, we’ve begun to see it extend to predicting call volumes and assisting in resource allocation. Some call center outsourcing technologies can even include fraud detection and risk mitigation features.
As the world continues to push technology further and further, it’s easy to think that these new tools will start to push out the human element, especially when it comes to call centers. While software automation and new AI tools can certainly handle simple, routine queries, they lack the delicate touch of human empathy and feelings.
Successful call centers, at their core, need human interaction to function, but leveraging these new call center outsourcing technologies can turn good customer interactions into great ones.
Taking the time to train (or upskill) your agents on new software will not only make them more prepared for the future but also ensure they’ll be able to continue to deliver excellent service.
Let’s look at how some of these call center outsourcing technologies can help agents:
Advancements in call center technology—from chatbots and conversational AI to voice recognition, natural language processing, and predictive analytics—are transforming how businesses interact with their customer base across the board.
Staying on top of these trends is essential if you want to deliver the best possible service. If you fail to keep up, you can easily fall behind your competition.
However, it’s important not to lose sight of the human touch. As great as technology is, you can’t forget the people who make memorable customer interactions. Embrace new tech, but make sure it’s being used to make your agents and customers’ lives easier—not swapping human compassion for cold efficiency.
As we look toward 2024 and beyond, it’s important to remember that we’re in the middle of a technological revolution with the recent surge of AI and automation tools. Call centers can benefit greatly from these new technologies to make a better experience for your customers, and your business.
Scorebuddy is embracing these new developments in AI and automation to expand its quality assurance solution. Want to see it in action? Get your free 14-day trial now.
