Workforce Management Featured Article
Voice Automation Tops Call Center To-Do Lists
What are the biggest challenges to call centers today? There are many, but the difficulties in maintaining adequate levels of trained staff are at the top of the list. In addition to hiring and retaining agents, call centers are simultaneously coping with call volume spikes, and high and increasing costs.
These concerns top the list of call center managers, according to contact center automation solutions provider Replicant’s newly released 2022 Automation in the Contact Center Report. The report, conducted by Demand Metric, highlights contact center industry priorities, challenges, and technology adoption in relation to automation.
One of the ways call centers are mitigating these difficulties is through increased automation, with voice automation showing up as a top priority. Eighty-two percent of respondents feel voice-based automation was likely or inevitable in the next two years. Automation is quickly becoming a critical part of a modern contact center.
"Automation has the power to transform the industry, as evidenced by the accelerated adoption of the technology," said Gadi Shamia, CEO and co-founder at Replicant, in a statement. "More and more companies are using automation to address chronic agent shortages and lower costs, while allowing their live agents to focus on more challenging and interesting customer issues. Automation, especially natural sounding voice automation that resolves customer challenges, will soon be standard in every contact center."
Eighty-seven percent of study participants indicate that the voice channel has the highest perceived value of automation compared to any other channel they use. For call centers that have allocated budget to automation, 83 percent targeted investment for voice automation and 76 percent have listed voice as an implementation priority.
Contact center leaders face a bevy of challenges and recognize automation as an opportunity to overcome them. While automation is being leveraged across channels, the value proposition of voice-based automation makes it a high priority.
Edited by Erik Linask
