Top Companies for Customer Service is the UK’s biggest customer service and benchmarking programme, so CCP are only too happy to help them to find and reward the very best companies out there.

A brand new award: Top Customer Service Partnership 2019

This year Top Companies for Customer Service introduces a new category to their prestigious awards, which will be presented at the Gala Dinner & Awards evening on Thursday 23rd January 2020 at the Birmingham Metropole Hilton Hotel. Entries can be submitted until Monday 2nd December 2019.

Richard Tribe, Programme Director describes the new award as “A special award to recognise the growing importance of partnerships in providing excellent customer service, between clients and key partners such as outsourced contact centres, technology providers or specialist fulfilment houses – or any other collaborative initiative between multiple parties”.
Nominees can be proposed by any part of the partnership, suggestions may be:

• A tech partner with an innovative product that has saved time and money
• An outsourcer that has taken the headache away
• A networking company that has facilitated the right match
• A charity who has helped raise awareness and in turn, helped you to help others
• A consultant who has introduced an improved and more effective way to work
• A collaboration between you and another organisation on a special project
• Any partner who has gone over and above during their alliance with you

The other award categories

Awards will also be presented to the winners of:

• Top Customer Service Agent
• Top Contact Centre ‘Special Moment’
• Hardware / Software Manufacturer of the Year

Full entry details for all award categories and a link to the entry form are here: Categories and Criteria. It’s not too early for anyone to nominate a team, individual or company!

The evening is dedicated to the ‘Top 50’ Companies for Customer Service Programme. Built on independent mystery shopping research (carried out by Ipsos Mori) and culminating in a Top 50 detailed service benchmark; awarding the 3 Top Performers within the following sectors – industry, contact centre size, channel and overall.

To get a flavour of the 2019 Gala Dinner & Awards evening, take a look at the photos here.

At Contact Centre Panel, we have built our business on helping brands, businesses and charities to choose their perfect outsourcing contact centre match. Our scientific approach and industry expertise results in long-lasting, rewarding business relationships – watch our short video to see how this works.

Phone 0114 209 6120 or email info@contactcentrepanel.com for more details today.

Are your outsourced contact centres Premier League? Ours are!

At CCP it’s our job to match people who need outsourced Contact Centres to their perfect providers. Unicef approached us earlier this year to help with their high-profile Soccer Aid charity event and we were only too proud to help.

The challenge

Unicef got in touch with CCP in April 2019 as they needed help finding call centres and volunteers to support incoming telephone donation handling for their Soccer Aid event, which took place on 16 June 2019 at Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge stadium in London and was broadcast live on ITV.

The 2018 Soccer Aid match audience peaked at 6 million viewers and resulted in a huge volume of calls and donations – the organisers were expecting even more in 2019.

The size of the job was not small! In 2018 there were almost 10,000 telephone donations made on the evening of the match, a huge volume in such a short space of time. This is Unicef UK’s most vital source of income, helping to raise the charity’s profile and contributing to the millions of pounds raised to help keep children safe from danger across the globe.

Time wasn’t on CCP’s side as we were only given a matter of days to find call centres with the right level of capacity, who were available to help and then survey them to check that their systems were compatible with BT’s platforms, as BT provided the networks for the calls. This was a huge challenge in such a short time period.

The CCP game plan

We immediately reached out to our network of 84 outsourced contact centres and to any clients with large in-house teams, to set up introductions with the Unicef team and to get the technology surveys completed.

The deadline for the technology compatibility work, to enable the call centres to be able to support the SoccerAid match, was only days away.

With our network of dependable, professional call centres, CCP were able to quickly contact and mobilise people within a very short timescale, putting them in touch with Unicef and BT to ensure that donations would be collected seamlessly and efficiently on the night.

The result – with no extra time!

We were absolutely delighted to pull this very important assignment off, with call centres being signed up and prepared in time for the event. As an extra win bonus, members of CCP’s network have already registered their interest in helping in 2020, taking the headache away from Unicef for next year’s event planning.

Although England’s team lost on penalties in 2019, CCP’s team scored and won with no extra time needed! As a result, Unicef are able to focus on their vital work of helping children throughout the world.

Unicef’s Jim Clements, Director of Soccer Aid, said “On behalf of everyone at Soccer Aid for Unicef, I want to say a massive thank you to the team at CCP for your help in securing call centres to process donations from the UK public during the Soccer Aid for Unicef 2019 match. Your hard work, determination and kindness will help to ensure that children everywhere grow up happy, healthy and able to play.”
We were delighted to have been able to help the amazing team at Unicef and support such a worthy cause.

At Contact Centre Panel, we have built our business on helping brands, businesses and charities to choose their perfect outsourcing contact centre match. Our scientific approach and industry expertise results in long-lasting, rewarding business relationships – watch our short video to see how this works.

If you’d like a free no-nonsense, no-obligation evaluation of your current Contact Centre solution, or just a quick chat about how you could improve things, contact us today:
Phone 0114 209 6120 or email info@contactcentrepanel.com today.

Learn more about SoccerAid’s tremendous work defending play for every child here.

The consumer association, Which?, recently published their annual mobile-customer satisfaction survey. They asked 6135 of their members to rate their mobile network provider on a range of factors including customer service and value for money.

The results highlighted that the three biggest mobile operators were failing to offer their customers a satisfactory level of service, despite often costing more than smaller rivals. Vodafone, EE and O2 all finished in the bottom three, while virtual network operator Giffgaff topped the poll.

Vodafone performed the worst overall for customer service, only achieving a one-star rating for service, value for money and technical support. 20% of the Vodafone customers surveyed said that customer service was poor, including complaints and query handling.

EE, the UK’s largest mobile network, also ranked among the worst providers, with only 25% of EE customers saying they had received good or excellent service for technical support, and less than half said the same about ease of contact and customer service.

The smaller network providers came out on top of the 13 networks included in the survey. Giffgaff was rated the top network in the survey, with Utility Warehouse and Plusnet Mobile taking second and third place.

To read the full results of the Which? best and worst mobile networks survey click here

With this in mind, we have pulled together a list of the top ten most common reasons for customers to get upset with their mobile service provider:

1. Responding to enquires too slowly
2. Providing information to one call agent only to have to provide the same information to a different call agent from the same company at a later point
3. Providing information to an automated system and then having to repeat the same information when connected to a call agent
4. Receiving excessive volumes of communication
5. Receiving communication that you consider an invasion of privacy
6. Treating you with a non-tailored one size fits all approach
7. Inaccurately tailored communication i.e. being addressed incorrectly -“Mr” in a customer letter when you are female
8. Receiving information that is inaccurately targeted i.e. offers of a joint account when you are single
9. Receiving little or no communication
10. Over familiar tone in communication

If your customer service is falling short get in touch get in touch to find out how Contact Centre Panel can help.

Outsourcer selection meets science

One of the reasons for founding Contact Centre Panel was our many conversations with people working at major brands who admitted honestly that they didn’t know how to find the Contact Centres to best meet their needs.

For example, Phill Connell is a consultant who works closely with The Contact Centre Panel now. In a previous life, he was given responsibility for outsourcing a major Lead Generation programme for a large energy company. With a background in business-to-business marketing, Phill’s area of expertise didn’t include choosing the best Contact Centres. At the time, CCP didn’t exist, so he had to learn very quickly!

Phill explains: “When I was selecting a Contact Centre to fix sales appointments with major energy users for our corporate sales force, I had to draw up a brief, then interview potential outsourced Contact Centres myself. Although I took it very seriously, there was a genuine risk that the brief I gave to potential suppliers wasn’t complete, or that a lack of experience would result in a bad choice.

“I like to think that my hard work paid off and we selected Contact Centres who gave us a good service, leading to three years of solid appointment-setting from our small group of outsourcers. However, I’ve absolutely no doubt that there was an element of good luck too! I strongly believe that we missed out on potentially great business partners simply because we didn’t know who the most suitable potential suppliers were. Although we knew what we needed, we had no real idea who could meet our needs until we found Contact Centres and asked them directly.

“If CCP had existed when I was looking for the best people to fix appointments for my company, I’ve no doubt that I would have used them. Removing that huge element of risk would have been an invaluable way to avoid the uncertainty we faced.”

We’re sure that many buyers of Contact Centre services can identify with this uncertainty. Whether it’s for Customer Service, Lead Generation or Outbound sales, how can buyers be expected to know which Contact Centres are a good match for their needs? That’s one of the reasons The Contact Centre Panel exists: to use our knowledge of the market to find the best Contact Centres for our Clients’ needs. One size does NOT fit all!

How does Contact Centre Panel find the right Contact Centre for your needs?

CCP work with over 110 Contact Centres, based across the UK, offshore and nearshore. This gives us unrivalled access to a huge variety of sizes, skills and suitability, enabling us to confidently identify and select the right Contact Centres to meet the exacting demands of our Clients.
Although our performance speaks for itself – over 88% of our clients extend their contractual relationships beyond the initial agreed period – here at CCP we’re constantly striving to improve the way we do business. With this in mind we’ve introduced a scientific, objective, impartial scoring method to demonstrate our requirement-led approach to helping Clients select the perfect Contact Centres for their requirements.

For a brief introduction, our short video is a great way to see what we do.

How do CCP assess potential Contact Centres?

First of all, CCP’s experts talk to the Client to establish their needs. Our extensive experience of the outsourcing sector then enables us to identify a shortlist of up to 8 potential partners, based on our in-depth knowledge of their relevant experience and skills. A detailed RFP is prepared and prospective partners are invited to respond.

Once a shortlist of interested parties has been drawn up, our CCP Scoring Matrix is employed. We engage with a number of industry experts to objectively assess each potential partner against consistent, relevant criteria to result in a scientific comparison of the different companies.
The criteria assessed are extensive, and can be grouped into six headings:

1. Alignment and solution
2. Location
3. People
4. Technology
5. Compliance and quality
6. Culture

Each heading has several questions, and each of the criteria is weighted in agreement with the Client to reflect their own preferred mix of strengths.

Why do we do this?

We apply the CCP Scoring Matrix to give clients a transparent view of the assurance that they are choosing from a small selection of Contact Centres who can meet their exacting needs and deliver a professional, compliant service. Using the CCP Scoring Matrix ensures a scientific approach to partner selection.

Although we are completely confident in our network of Contact Centre providers, every member of our network has different strengths, capabilities and relevant experience in different sectors. This scientific approach to partner selection works in the interests of both the Client and the Contact Centres and results in business relationships that deliver better results for everybody concerned.

If you would like to know more about this approach to selecting the right Contact Centre for your needs, just contact CCP today.

How can Contact Centre Panel help you?

At Contact Centre Panel, it’s our role to find the perfect match between a Client’s needs and a Contact Centre’s strengths. Ultimately all negotiations about commercial agreements are between the Client and the outsourcer, but we are able to help in a number of ways.

We’re profiling all of our Network Members to establish which of our 110+ partners can satisfy a wide-ranging series of client requirements, from commercial models to compliance, from lead generation to excellent customer service.

It is important to us that our clients are able to compare potential partners fairly. We carefully prepare our briefs to ensure that apples are compared to apples, that fair comparators are included in our brief so that results are expressed properly.

Following receipt of responses to the brief, CCP collates all potential solutions in a comparative matrix, allowing the client to compare like for like. Within this stage of the process, CCP will point out any obvious anomalies. This gives our clients the best possible information to choose their preferred Contact Centre partner, to meet their own specific needs. One size does not fit all!

If you’re not sure whether your Contact Centre is meeting your needs, talk to us here at The Contact Centre Panel for an unbiased review of your current status – just contact us by email or call 0114 209 6120 to talk about your needs. We won’t push: we will only help if you need it.

Keep In Touch

Follow CCP on LinkedIn for regular industry news and updates. It’s not all about us! Just look at our website’s News & Publications page for many more helpful articles.

To find out more about working with the perfect partner for your business, give us a call here at Contact Centre Panel on 0114 209 6120 or contact us using the form on our website.

Most commonly, people associate Contact Centres with the long-established, bums-on-seats “cost plus” model, where clients are charged based on the cost of agents plus overheads and a margin, for an agreed contract or campaign period.

However, our industry is changing. You only have to read some of the articles on CCP’s News pages to understand that the dynamics around the introduction of automation technologies, the need to add value and planning for the future mean that traditional commercial models have to be challenged by Contact Centres and clients alike, to achieve the best results going forwards. If clients and are going to keep customers happy and Contact Centres are going to remain profitable, the charging regimes need to reflect the clients’ desired results much more closely.

To get a perspective from within the industry, we looked back at some research from within the sector and spoke to David Gauntlett, Managing Director of The Prospect Factory.

The Prospect Factory is a business built on outbound calls aimed at generating leads for business-to-business (B2B) clients. David set up the business in 2008 following a number of years in the Contact Centre industry, where he’d worked to generate sales leads for some of the biggest brands. Initially, on the client side for large automotive brands, David employed telemarketing agencies using a traditional retainer model and became frustrated that the charging models didn’t always reflect performance. As a result, he chose to set up The Prospect Factory to focus on results-oriented lead generation for clients who preferred to pay for qualified prospects.

David’s perspective should give some food for thought if you’re thinking of moving towards a payment-by-results model… although it’s important to remember that not all campaigns are outbound lead generation, so there are clearly environments where other commercial models will work best.

What makes a pay-per-prospect model different?

David explains: “We use a pay-per-appointment low risk telemarketing model to get appointments for our clients’ sales teams. This contrasts with the fixed price per day or hour that most Contact Centres charge, regardless of success.

“We agree in advance what a good prospect appointment looks like and we audit against those criteria, so we only send results to the client if they meet those criteria. Then our clients are billed per appointment each month. Any appointments that get cancelled are rebooked, ideally, or credited if we can’t reschedule them.”

As you’d expect, every appointment-generation job has a different level of complexity and difficulty, so the commercial model has to be adapted to reflect the client’s needs and the characteristics of the prospect audience. David gave us some examples, but it’s vital to use experience and industry knowledge to set pricing and expectations, which is where an in-depth knowledge of the client’s sector can be very handy:

“The price depends on the difficulty of the task. In the automotive industry, for example, there is a wide range of prices per appointment, averaging less than £300 but ranging as high as £700 for the most complex (but most rewarding) appointments.

“It’s also possible to have a tiered approach, where a lower price is charged, for example, for a webinar or conference call for a smaller opportunity or more exploratory sales conversation. This reflects the size of the opportunity or the stage in the sales funnel.”

What types of client do cost-per-result models suit best?

“Any business with a tangible product offering which salespeople need to be outselling can benefit from a cost-per-appointment arrangement. The salaries earned by salespeople in high value markets mean that their time is not well used prospecting – they can add value much more effectively when they’re in front of their targets having sales conversations built on high quality, qualified appointments.

“There are many sectors that don’t suit the model though. These include the Telecoms, IT and Software, Management Consultancy and other sectors. Also, it’s virtually impossible to apply a cost-per-appointment model to any sector that isn’t B2B as there simply isn’t the value per sale to justify it.”

Considering newer commercial models

David’s opinions about the future are worth noting: “The Contact Centre and Outsourcing sector is fairly settled, with most large operators continuing to price on an hourly retainer basis. It’s not very easy to find a great Contact Centre that’s happy to charge on a per-success basis. I don’t envisage much change in the short term, because the traditional retainer model is what most Contact Centres have built their business around. It’s what they do and it’s what they’re going to prefer to carry on doing.

“That’s what makes businesses like the Prospect Factory different. We’ve built our business on a cost-per-result basis and whilst that makes us careful about who we work with, it’s what makes us different and the right match for our clients.

“There are some very useful extensions to the cost-per-success commercial model though. Contact Centres like ours are also able to offer complementary services such as mid-life customer retention calls, renewal solutions for clients with near-expiry customer contracts, and customer satisfaction calls. These all build on the positive strengths of our pre-sales appointment-setting work and add value for clients who are looking to maximise returns from their outbound Contact Centre work.”

As well as the value-adding outbound services mentioned by David, there are a number of other commercial charging models that can be applied to Contact Centre and Outsourcing work. The right model to choose depends on factors such as what a good result looks like, agent availability, industry served and the length of the campaign/relationship, but typical examples include:

• Cost plus – The more traditional approach, agent costs plus overheads plus margin, based on volume forecasts and agreed in advance;
• Unit pricing – Per call/second/minute/incident – or per appointment/sale. This model can also be adapted by volume steps or complexity levels e.g. Lower cost per sales call than for a full meeting
• Fixed price – Typically per agent hour, especially useful for inbound work
• Incentive based – Per sale/appointment, but also rewards for other metrics such as First Call Resolution, Time per call etc. Payment for results, not for time
• Gain sharing – The client and outsourcer share a proportion of the results or cost savings, often beyond a minimum threshold
• Managed service – A fully customised payment regime based on client/outsourcer partnership agreement

How can Contact Centre Panel help?

At the Contact Centre Panel, it’s our role to find the perfect match between a client’s needs and a Contact Centre’s strengths. Ultimately all negotiations about commercial agreements are between the client and the outsourcer, but we are able to help in a number of ways.

At the outset of working with any client, CCP holds a consultative discussion around the pro’s and cons of various commercial models which might be able to meet the client’s needs. The general commercial terms of engagement are then set out and reflected in the brief we send to appropriate members of our Network of over 80 Contact Centres and Outsourcers. We’ll only approach businesses that can meet the needs of the brief, including the commercial model/s chosen.

We’re profiling all of our Network Members to establish which of our 80+ partners can satisfy a wide-ranging series of client requirements, from commercial models to compliance, from lead generation to excellent customer service.

It is important to us that our clients are able to compare potential partners fairly. We carefully prepare our briefs to ensure that apples are compared to apples, that fair comparators are included in our brief so that results are expressed properly.

Following receipt of responses to the brief, CCP collates all commercial solutions in a comparative matrix, allowing the client to compare like for like. Within this stage of the process, CCP will point out any obvious anomalies. This gives our clients the best possible information to choose their preferred Contact Centre partner, to meet their own specific needs. One size does not fit all!

If you’re not sure whether your Contact Centre is meeting your needs, talk to us here at The Contact Centre Panel for an unbiased review of your current status – just contact us by email or call 0114 209 6120 to talk about your needs. We won’t push: we will only help if you need it.

Keep in touch

Follow CCP on LinkedIn for regular industry news and updates. It’s not all about us! Just look at our website’s News & Publications page for many more helpful articles.

To find out more about working with the perfect partner for your business, give us a call on 0114 209 6120 or contact us using the form on our website.

Within the Contact Centre and Outsourcing industry, Digital Disruption is big news. Deep learning, Artificial Intelligence and chat bots are on everyone’s lips. But at the sharp end, where our services are actually delivered, what impact is really being felt?

To separate the facts from the forecasts, we spoke to two leading industry experts about the current state of digital disruption and the reality of dealing with these transformative technologies.

Our Experts

Eihab Mohamed has built on a successful career in customer engagement and contact centre outsourcing which included migrating huge multi-site, multi-language customer operations projects, and working across some of the largest sectors and clients in the industry.  More recently. as Customer Engagement Director at The Telegraph, Eihab’s was the first senior role charged with owning “Customer”, helping to shape a new outlook, in a digital age! Now Managing Director of Lighthouse Consulting Europe, Eihab brings together experts in engagement to advise major brand name clients throughout Europe and is a board director at Yourcentre, a contact centre service provider.  He is also closely involved with Sentient Machines, specialists in Artificial Intelligence (AI), big data and machine learning who use cutting edge research and natural language processing techniques to empower Contact Centres.

Graham Brown is responsible for Sales and Marketing in Europe for HGS (Hinduja Global Solutions), a leading exponent of digital advancements, working from 7 countries to bring innovative solutions to clients, without the legacy issues that can be all-too-common with large contact centre providers. HGS believes that customer expectations are common across different sectors, therefore helping customers to have better experiences is key to recognising that, in Graham’s words, “the customer is no longer king, they are dictators!”

What is the state of play for AI and Digital the Contact Centre Space?

Graham Brown, HGS: “Robotic Process Automation (RPA) already impacts front and back office in some operations. Automation supports voice interactions as well as “modern” channels like in-app messaging, webchat and social media. However, RPA is at a bit of a crossroads: there is a lot of hesitancy in the market, fuelled by lots of legacy in the infrastructures and processes of big, established businesses.

“We don’t expect to see the disappearance of voice. Personal voice communication will always have a place for complex and emotive cases. However, RPA will continue to increase its share of interaction through bots, as machine learning is more able to recognise repeatable, programmable processes to deliver the right customer outcomes.

“Most cases come back to the question: How good is your knowledge base? If your knowledge base is poor, results in automation will also be poor. Improving and continuous machine learning will continue to improve the results of RPA.

“It’s less visible to customers, but back office is where automation is already more prevalent. For example, in healthcare a lot of the decision-making activity is rule-based and follows a set process. A lot of that work has already moved offshore, initially to reduce costs using human agents, but latterly automation has been successfully introduced once processes are tied down, minimising the scope for human error and increasing processing speeds too. The result of RPA implementation is quicker, more accurate AND cheaper processing with consistent outcomes.

“For contact centres through, there’s a BIG challenge with digital disruption: most pricing and buying decisions are based on peoples’ time. Therefore automation in a time-based pricing situation actually reduces a supplier’s income! Reducing processing time and headcounts through efficiency actually reduces profitability, which is counter-intuitive. This is what holds back many big outsourcers: why would they want to re-engineer and improve if it results in reduced revenue for them? In turn, this presents a big opportunity for organisations like HGS, where helping new clients introduce digital efficiencies is a benefit to both HGS and the client.

Eihab Mohamed, Lighthouse Consulting: “The reality at the moment is that most big outsourcing organisations tend to introduce technology and AI when clients demand it, rather than driving it themselves. For example, speech analytics has been around for a couple of decades but large players are still very slow to adopt it, whereas new entrants are using it to carve out a position in the marketplace.

“Remember when CRM (Customer Relationship Management) was the buzzword in the noughties? So many organisations were system-led and the important “C”, the Customer, became forgotten! It’s the same challenge with the latest tech and AI: utilising the new tools whilst putting the customer at the centre, is the imperative.

“AI is being over-hyped. It needs to be demystified. Artificial Intelligence in our context is about applying machine learning and deep learning to improving customer experiences and profitability. There are lots of potential applications and opportunities, but there is a concern that companies claiming to have AI solutions do not, muddying the waters : a recent study reported in the FT showed that there was no evidence of AI being used in 40% of 2,800 start-up businesses. So as a first step, organisations must understand what AI is, and isn’t.

“AI in the contact centre space is definitely a real opportunity. Contact centres have access to tons of data – every customer interaction generates data that can be used to learn from. The repeating nature of contact centre communications means that machines can learn from the swathes of data collected. Not just form and key-press data either: natural language processing is now accessible to businesses when it wasn’t practical before, thanks to it becoming cheaper and easier to process.

“Gartner recently said that only 4% of contact centres have deployed conversation bots in real situations, but 38% plan to. This indicates both the growth potential and the real desire by contact centres and brands to move with the times. However, it’s important to know what you’re trying to achieve with AI and automation. What problem are you trying to solve or prevent? Customer experience, revenue generation, cost efficiency, product improvements? Understanding the data is paramount.

“Also, it’s important to have good leadership in your programme to adopt any new technology, then ownership without which your plan will go nowhere. Contact centres typically have a range of stakeholders from sales, marketing, customer service and sometimes other departments. By giving someone ownership and authority, you can drive a culture of innovation where priority is given to finding new and better ways of getting things done. Following a process of Pilot, Test, Adopt in manageable parts of your organisation, successful projects can be made to work in a controlled way before being rolled out to the main business.”

Where will the effects of Digital Disruption from new technologies be felt in the next few years?

Graham Brown, HGS: “There’s an important competitive force at play in the coming years. Tech companies with new models for delivering solutions and generating income will force contact centres to rethink how they charge their clients. A new tech business might charge a flat fee to implement a technology, whilst a more full-service outsourcer might charge a share of savings, for example. The key to success might be a more holistic view where the ability to implement new technologies is an integral part of a full-business solution, which is linked to customer service outcomes as a whole.

“From an operational point of view, RPA will drive out a proportion of live agent volume. This will mean less voice, chat and email communications. However, live agents will be handling significantly more complex interactions. These will have a more significant influence over metrics such as customer lifetime value, because the customers dealing with live agents will tend to be those with more complex, risky issues. It’s an exciting future where great contact centres with a mix of great tech and excellent agents can really add value in protecting and enhancing brands. At the moment many contact centre agents might not feel that they make a big difference: that will change.

“There will be a move away from the ‘bums on seats’ models we’ve become used to. The industry will be able to value people more, people who will generate more value and be able to justify higher price points for the value-adding services they deliver. This won’t be easy though: it will mean re-skilling a lot of people.

“For customers, self-service will improve thanks to machine learning and most interactions will be better and quicker. The days of 20 minute on-hold times should be numbered!

“Many new tech companies are great at the automation part, but not at the complex part or the handover between the two systems. Good contact centres will take a holistic look at contact volumes by channel for 100% of demand, growing new channels whilst taking care of those interactions which still need expert human involvement.

“A simple view is that volumes of voice and human interactions will steadily decrease, whilst RPA volumes will steadily increase at the same time. This won’t happen. Being able to handle the flow between automated and human channels will be vital, and it’s important to realise that other factors will influence the volumes. What if there’s a sudden product recall? A seasonal stock-shortage? How will your automated and human resources cope?

“In the short term, bots can be used to help human agents. At a recent industry event, I found that no clients felt that they had a robust bot solution available. This sounds like bad news, but bots can be used to help human agents find the right solutions for customers. Think about IT professionals: we often frown at them when they use the internet to find the solution to our computing problems, but the fact is they know where to look, while we don’t! Human agents can find answers using AI techniques to help, which leads to improvements in the AI automations which can be rolled out to customer-facing situations once they are robust enough.”

Eihab Mohamed, Lighthouse Consulting: “It’s very difficult to predict when and where the effects of Digital Disruption will be felt most strongly, because the industry is being driven so hard. £1bn is being pumped into AI and related technologies in Britain alone, so things will move quickly! New challengers and established players are involved, so we will have to adapt to change as it happens. Talking about how new technologies will achieve what outcomes is key. This will decide the priorities for the industry.

“Too much star-gazing can lead to navel-gazing though… so action is important!

“Customers don’t worry about the technologies too much. They just want answers, so the most successful businesses will be the ones who find better ways to get to those answers. If you’re going to deploy AI the greatest effect you can aim for is to improve outcomes. Using AI to analyse sentiment data, for example, will enable organisations to filter out noise quickly and identify insights to drive action. If you trust the data, you can confidently build a business case for the technology and the systems to handle repeatable interactions. These could have the capability to remove 20-30% of human contact to self-service.

“Analysis, then application of lessons from data is key. For example, to identify where best to use bots to augment human interaction rather than fully replacing it. There’s definitely a place for AI and humans alongside each other.

“Strategies have to remain fluid. Change and challenges happen quickly and, as processing power becomes better, cheaper and quicker with time, it will open up new opportunities for the businesses who are ready to take them.”

Is AI, Automation and Digital Disruption a Threat or an Opportunity?

Eihab Mohamed, Lighthouse Consulting: “Being objective, this depends on your outlook or where you sit. It’s important to understand that people will still remain your greatest asset. You still need humans to think, to strategise and to provide the creative thinking.

“There is a threat to some low-skilled roles, which are repetitive or easy and AI can replace, but successful adoption of AI technologies is all about augmenting what goes on in customer service. So, customer service roles can be made more rewarding and fulfilling without the repetition of many current processes.

“This is going to happen, the question is when. So the consideration for contact centres is about redefining roles for people who will be affected by the introduction of technology. Build roles for the future.”

Graham Brown, HGS: “Don’t be a Kodak, a Comet or a Woolworths. If you see new technology as a threat you will become irrelevant in the market. As a contact centre you have to embrace the inevitable change and understand how it works commercially. Critically, you have to find a blended way that AI and digital provides part of a whole solution.

“Digital improvements will enable us to do what we really want to do: give great customer solutions. Google killed the old Direct Enquiries service. This is not as much of a seismic shift but change is happening.

“We will probably see more large players consolidating to drive out cost reductions, but this is a short term solution which arguably protects the old business models, so it can’t last forever. The new successes will come from players who can deliver great technological solutions married to excellent human involvement.”

What do Contact Centres need to do to be successful in this rapidly-changing world?

Graham Brown, HGS: “To stay ahead of the game, contact centres need to embrace the opportunities presented by AI, machine learning and the tools that they make possible. Embed the tools and show the value that they can bring to your clients.

“This will not be easy! The way customer service is delivered will change as a result of these new technologies. You will need to change your culture, your people and your commercial arrangements to make the most of the future… but it’s not impossible.

“Surround yourself with excellent technology partners, take ownership of the future and always keep a total view of the ultimate customer experience. After all, it’s that customer experience that determines whether you’re delivering success or not.”

Eihab Mohamed, Lighthouse Consulting: “We probably have never had access to data in the way, and at the scale, that we have now. It’s impossible for humans to get through it all. Start to explore the massive amounts of data you have available and take advantage of the new ways you can analyse it to find new solutions for your customers. Get the data organised, work out what you’ve got and then work out what questions you can answer with it.  Develop an insight-driven culture beyond the data department.

“Work with a partner who can help you find the answers and the strategies to take your business forward, not just to sell you the boxes to make it possible. Then think about where you might want to take the solutions forward, such as chat and voice bots for example. The costs of entry are much lower than even a few years ago. It’s possible to implement some of these technologies on a pay-as-you-go model now.

“Decide whether you are an innovator or an imitator. First-mover advantage can be massive, but some organisations can be successful by learning from other people’s mistakes! But don’t get left behind.”

In Conclusion:

The experts we’ve spoken to are in no doubt that Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and the new tools that are being made possible by the analysis of Big Data are already changing the landscape in the Contact Centre sector. Your organisation has to be ready to operate in the Brave New World of automation.

If you’re not sure whether your Contact Centre is embracing the future, talk to us here at The Contact Centre Panel for an unbiased review of your current status – just contact us by email or call 0114 209 6120 to talk about your needs. We won’t push: we will only help if you need it.

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