As the economy continues to improve in the US and around the world, 2014 is looking to be a good year for technology investments that are supported by a solid business case, and have quantifiable benefits and a rapid payback of one year or less. Enterprises and government agencies are expected to make investments to improve the customer or constituent experience. These investments will address the core infrastructure of contact centers and customer service organizations, many of which have not been updated in more than ten years. Other investments will be for management applications and analytics to help organizations make the most of every customer contact.

Investments will be driven by the top 8 contact center/servicing trends for 2014. These trends are:

1. Improving customer service – For years, executives have discussed the importance of delivering a great experience, but they have been unwilling to make the investments necessary to achieve this goal. But change is finally starting to happen. It may be because of the speed at which a small issue can go viral, or perhaps a growing appreciation that customer service is becoming the primary differentiator in a world of highly commoditized products and services.
2. Improving the customer journey – For the first time, organizations now have tools to measure every touch and action taken by prospects and customers, from the time they first access information about a company online to when they retire the use of a product.
3. Resolving inquires during the initial contact – Organizations have been talking about “one and done” or first contact resolution (FCR) for as long as call/contact centers have existed. But now, organizations are going proactive, realizing that the shortest route and best way to resolve an issue is to try to address everything a caller might need to know, not just what they are asking. Companies are striving to provide answers to anticipated issues in order to deliver an outstanding customer experience.
4. Reducing operating costs – Contact centers and customer service departments require staff, and people are expensive. Executives are more motivated than at any time in the past to deliver an outstanding customer experience, but the winning investments will be those that improve service while reducing operating expenses.
5. Complying with regulatory requirements – Whether it’s the new telephone consumer protection act (TCPA) regulations or other do-not-call (DNC) requirements in the US and in many other countries, governments are introducing laws to protect their citizens from bad business practices.
6. Avoiding social media firestorms – Companies are investing in social media to avoid bad public relations. Never in the history of business has there been a tool like social media that can impact the bottom line and stock price of a company due to the public airing of consumer opinions.
7. Retaining customers – This is a top goal in tough economic times, but is still important when people are more freely spending money, because it is always more expensive to acquire customers than to retain existing ones.
8. Increasing sales and collections – Companies are in business in order to make money. Inside and outside sales team need to pick up the pace of sales. Collections departments need best practices to increase their contribution to the bottom line. And executives want their contact centers to pick up the slack and become major players in generating revenue.

Many of these goals are similar to those in prior years, however, the priorities have changed, and there are new “twists” that are being enabled by a more open, creative and flexible view of the role of contact centers and service organizations.

Top technology/application areas of investment for 2014 – 2015 will be:

1. Unified communications/contact center solutions
2. Customer relationship management/servicing/sales applications, including desktop analytics
3. Speech analytics and analytics-enabled quality assurance
4. Real-time guidance/next-best action
5. Workforce management, including intra-day management
6. Social media applications to improve the effectiveness, timeliness, and quality of these interactions
7. Performance management to improve management of front and back-office operating areas
8. Back-office applications for work allocation and workforce management
9. Big data and proactive analytics to support all of these initiatives

A lot is going to change during the next few years, including the contributions and perception of contact centers. We at DMG wish you a great and successful 2014. Please let us know how we can help.

Answer:
DMG expects 2014 to be a good year for contact center IT investments – the best since the Great Recession. We recommend that buyers draft a business case that includes a return on investment analysis to speed up the process of obtaining senior management approval. In many companies, new IT investments are expected to pay for themselves in 9 to 18 months, although CFOs are still more inclined to approve short-term projects that have a return on investment in less than 9 months.