I sometimes wonder if we have reached a point in our evolutionary journey where there is little that is new in the world, just different ways of getting to the same outcome?  

A recurring theme for me in recent years has been the proverb “if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together”.  

Clearly, this proverb was new to me at some point, but has been around for some time. As an advocate of outsourcing and the value of partnerships it really did resonate with me. It just made sense; using the experience of the collective to deliver a better outcome.   

What’s new to me, you may have done several times before.  So, sharing in the experience of others could help us get further than by trying to go it alone. The solo journey may initially have less friction, with nobody to challenge how I’m approaching things I could make all kinds of fast progress – but admittedly in the wrong direction!  

I’ve written recently about the value which can be achieved by focusing on your core activity, working with partners and leveraging the skills of specialists can enable a business to develop or reduce costs for example.   

But what if we cannot decide our direction?   

That’s the challenge for many organisations and it’s not surprsing. We’ve just been through what feels like eight years of continued uncertainty in the wake of the Brexit referendum, a global pandemic, conflict, and the resulting economic impacts, followed by the past 12 months which have seen unparalleled development in technology.    

That feels like a lot, right? So perhaps currently it may feel better to just hold station and wait a while?  The promise of automation that is here and about to be delivered could make decisions taken today feel dated by tomorrow?   

But indecision and just doing the same is never really an option is it?  What are your objectives, what is the ambition of your organisation? Working with others makes the achievement of these much easier.  For once I’m going to suggest forgetting your immediate customer experience goals for a moment, instead think of your headline business objectives – where does your business need to be 12, 24, 36 or 60 months from now?  

Sometimes we all need a little help  

A key strength is knowing your own weaknesses and being able to ask for support. Arrogantly assuming we have all the answers never ends well.  If you know where you need to be headed at the highest level, then the strategy to get you there can take an amount of focus – and when you are trying to deliver the day to day, implementing change can be hard.   

Often, we already know what needs our attention and what we’d like to do differently. But when there are competing priorities and differing options for solving challenges, all promising to do exactly what you need, then it can be hard to determine what’s the right option for you.  

Building your own solution when there are proven ones can be troublesome, even adapting what comes out of the box can be expensive, too, as we saw when Birmingham Council tried. 

So why not work with others to ensure that you deliver your objectives with minimal effort and maximum focus? Partnering with others brings multiple benefits,  

The key is to have the right commercial agreements to ensure that your objectives are aligned and you can work as a true partnership, as outlined in Steve Sullivan’s recent article ‘Is the traditional outsourcing contract past its ‘sell by’ date?‘.

How far is far in a CX sense?

Whether you are an organisation with an inhouse contact centre, or if you are an outsourcer or have an operation that you have outsourced already, the rapid changes in technology and their impact to customer experience means that you have to be clear “how high is high”.  

Additionally, what is “high” for one organisation may not be for another, we perhaps need to talk in the sense of what is optimum instead?  Your service ambitions may be linked to cost as opposed to quality, it comes down to the value of the product and the budget of course, so delivery should be optimal.   

All customers change their expectations based on the all the different services that they receive from multiple brands. Each helps set the expectation for the next and the changing technologies alter what is available to be delivered.  

Ask yourself realistically:

  1. How much automation do your customers want?
  2. Have you already moved to self-service everything that your customers will tolerate?  
  3. Do you really know which processes cause the most friction for your customers? 
  4. Do you always have people available to engage with your customers when they need support? 
  5. Can you afford to always have people available? Do you want to?  

 We could continue with the questions, however you get my point.

Conclusion

If you are about to set out on a journey to do things differently are all the potential stakeholders in your business in the right place to deliver for you?  

The level of change that we are seeing at the moment means that there are likely to be areas where your existing team may not recognise where they have blind-spots. But these are good people – they have done good things for your organisation and want to do more. Never underestimate the benefits of them working with specialists and learning from them, they will repay your investment in them if done in the right way.  

 Always consider what opportunity there is for knowledge transfer to your teams and how this can deliver additional value. 

Why not ask us to travel with you?

Working with partners offers the ability to look at things from additional angles, consolidating understanding and benefiting from wider experiences. If you have a thorny topic or challenge that your organisation is facing then why not ask the Contact Centre Panel team for a chat?

Let me play with the stereotypes for a moment when it comes to what different people think of when it comes to growth. We all think it, so someone should say it:

  1. Finance will be more focused on revenue growth from either selling more to existing customers or winning new ones;
  2. Marketing may consider the growth in brand recognition as a key in delivering that growth;
  3. HR will want to see the growth of the people that they are developing and progressing; AND
  4. Operations, well they are the lucky ones, they have to deliver all kinds of growth and balance the needs of the business and the people!

I know I’m biased because I started my contact centre life in Ops, at the “coal face” “on the phones” – however, our industry whether in-house or outsource plays a key part in the lives of the end customers, in the representation of brands and in the delivery of authenticity. Ultimately, sales projections and forecast customer retention rates can quickly fail to materialise if the customer service team don’t deliver on the brand promise.

Contact centre traditions

Where contact centres have always excelled is tracking data, the joys of an ACD. 25 years ago we had access to data that other sectors would have only dreamed of, then we had all this information in agents heads from the customer conversations they were having, the people on the phones were hearing of all manner of issues that customers were facing and still do.

Quality and coaching was a little harder, we knew when our calls were being recorded for training and monitoring purposes as “Arthur” would be sat at the end of the floor with a Sony tape recorder, so we knew today was possibly the day. Feedback and coaching would follow, but was limited to the 5 calls that had been recorded for you in the month and often you’d receive feedback on multiple at once. Growth was possible but perhaps limited…

Daily performance stats had to be pulled from the system, pasted into Excel and a macro run. I can remember when we got out first NICE call recorder and then implementing Witness with screen capture – it was the future.

The present day

Jumping back to the present day, I’m fortunate now to see a great number of contact centre technologies and tools. When one such technology was described to be as “Fitbit for contact centres” I was immediately curious. What follows (like with most) is you see a demo of the solution and you can immediately see how you would have implemented it when in operations and the benefits that it delivers, how it supports the whole team in the delivery of their roles and actively tracks the impact of coaching interventions. It then becomes clear that this is a solution developed by someone who has first-hand experience of the challenges faced by teams in operations.

Infact, Rob and the team at miPerform have developed a solution which no matter how often I see in demo, I’m left envious of the current team leader and ops manager population that I didn’t have access to this when I was a team lead.

Growth is not only good for you, but also good for your employees and customers alike

Current solutions have the ability to evaluate more contacts on your behalf and flag to you those that need closer attention, to identify the coaching required and track performance following delivery.

Whilst this may feel focused on the benefits to the customer and the business, it actually provides the opportunity for growth in the agent and manager populations. This will lead to more readily identifying growth opportunities and ultimately staff who are supported, developed and grow will feel more inclined to stay and therefore grow their experience and deliver better service to customers.

When customers receive better service they stay and may spend more, which delivers the growth the Finance team are looking for.

Which means?

Driving sustainable growth requires key systems and processes to track performance and deliver the right coaching at the right time, to ensure that those processes and interventions had the desired impact, that staff are supported and then if your people are growing well you can confidently grow your business.

Are you too looking at ways to deliver growth? Drop us a line, we would love to chat with you.

I’ve spent the last 25 years working in contact centres and in a conversation earlier this week with another long standing, highly experienced person we agreed that many of the issues that we were dealing with 15 or 20 years ago are still challenges that face our industry today. When I was on the phones supporting a mobile phone network, I can remember receiving transferred calls that just weren’t for me to deal with. 

For instance, the Sales team pushing something through to Service when the issue was that a handset order hadn’t gone through correctly. Knowing that they weren’t going to make a sale to someone who had already purchased, Sales decided that it was now a service call.  I’m sure we can come up with a hundred examples if we wanted to.   

However, we can’t change what happened in the first half, we can only change the result through playing smarter in the second.   

If the process was broken can automation help fix it?

There is a potential for a law of unintended consequences; you may not get what you initially signed up for (ask Harry)…. If the process is broken and you automate it then you could just generate more improper transfers at greater speed, as the bot just powers through. Not the fault of the bot, it was just doing as it was told.

If someone is getting questions that sit outside of their skills then they could be spending time searching for an answer or be passing the call on unnecessarily, as a result CX suffers. But how to catch such issues before they are the talk of Feefo and Trustpilot?

Increasing QA sample size and use of auto QA tools has to be an opportunity to identify issues quickly and make critical adjustments to the process, training of the agent and or the bot.

What are the root causes of poor CX? 

Automation of QA and enabling first level managers to identify and address coaching opportunities more quickly is only half of the story.   

Access to more data and insights allows businesses to better understand customer effort and the issues creating friction in customer journeys, issues which could be driving churn, creating grumpy customers and maybe unhappy agents who are then more likely to attrite.   

Whilst we in the industry don’t like talking about AHT anymore, customers do talk about how long it took for their issues to be dealt with. The age old Wait Time, and Hold Time are still important to customers (they are important to the person paying for the contact centre too). Root cause analysis remains a key opportunity to identify where AHT can be reduced and agent workflows can be optimised.   

Customer surveys are great, but really they are much better when the meta data from the call, the quality score and the survey feedback are all joined together.  Customer dissatisfaction data should be an opportunity to identify training needs and make changes, it helps when you have the full context of the interaction in one place.   

If the customer had to contact more than once then it becomes even more critical to link all that data together, identify the processes that are most likely to generate multiple contacts and consider how you can remove those additional contacts driving customer and employee experience.

“Take action to reduce the number of improper transfers”

There are typically 3 key drivers of improper transfers, the key is to take action to reduce them.  I’m sure we’ve either all caused issues through the following or have dealt with the consequences of them during our careers.   

What can you do about it?  

AI powered insights enable faster understanding of issues, patterns can be seen more quickly, improvement areas can be identified and actioned before the end of the shift, not the end of the month.

  1. Identifying coaching opportunities and actioning them quickly can make a material difference. Issues with processes not being completed right now may lay dormant for months, years even?  Consider change of tenancy processes, the details of the tenant or a meter read may be entered incorrectly now which doesn’t present as an issue until the customer receives their first bill (smart metering should prevent this, but what if the start date was captured incorrectly?).
  2. Use of screen capture to see what actually happened, what the agent saw and therefore advised the customer can be critical to identifying system issues, or issues with accuracy of information in the knowledge base.  These are key considerations and opportunities for organisations to be more informed in their decision making.   

“If things are going well now, that is a reflection of the work that went in 6 months ago”

The performance being delivered by your contact centre team is going to reflect the work you have done previously to ensure that you have the right people, processes, and technology.   

Sometimes you may make the wrong choices, the best you can do is play what is in front of you, keeping an eye on the horizon so that things are less likely to come as a surprise. The thing is that through using technology and AI our ability to see what is on the horizon is much improved versus what it was 20 years ago.    

I was speaking with a partner who has seen a 48% increase in QA audit deliver a 30% reduction in AHT.  They’ve used the insights from the QA to reduce improper transfers, improve processes, provide better training for agents and ensure the tech stack is aligned.   

Now I know people don’t like talking about AHT but I’m guessing we’d all be happy to talk about the benefits that could be delivered in improved employee and customer experiences, reduced wait times, more investment time, lower agent attrition, reduced recruitment and training costs, increased customer retention and of course, that all means reduced costs to serve and improved profit margins.   

Need help finding a new star player? 

Harry Kane may be gone, but it already looks like Tottenham are marching on under Ange Postecoglou – where will they finish this season I wonder?

We’d love to chat with you about how you are planning on getting the most out of your team this year and delivering a winning performance.

In the past 12 months we have seen rapid acceleration of automation and AI solutions. However, when it comes down to dealing with customers, human relationships still have their place.

We are all customers and there are times when we just want to get something done quickly. In banking terms that may be a balance or transaction check, give me the information that I need fast and simple. It could be a renewal of your insurance or to check where an order is.

But what if the balance isn’t what you expected or you have a duplicate transaction? The renewal price has changed dramatically, or the order isn’t arriving today after all, and you’ve taken a holiday day to wait for it? Well, you probably want to speak with someone, you want understanding and empathy. Another human to say to you it has all been sorted and there is nothing to worry about, to apologise – and mean it.

So, it is likely there will always be some form of need for human intervention in the process.

People determine the processes 

AIAI can determine when a customer is likely to need to make contact based on analysis of various data points and the creation of insights. It can run tasks/journeys to make proactive contacts at the right times based on customer lifecycles.

However, it has not reached the point of autonomy yet where it can decide what the CX should look like, it can give the tools but you still need to direct the effort, so people remain key.

Are your automation objectives aligned?

 Few outsource providers have the technology inhouse to satisfy the needs of their clients directly, few clients have the experience to implement AI themselves. As an outsource community of CX specialists you have the opportunity to shape the service delivered and the enable your clients to deliver better outcomes for their customers, differentiate their brand and help them either grow their business or reduce costs.

There is no point putting your head in the sand; this change is here, it is happening now. To say “it’s coming and we will get to it” is too little, too late.

The best thing that you can do is ensure that you have the right partners to enable you to deliver the changes that your client needs and the right commercial agreement with your client to ensure that your business is sustainable.

“If you aren’t talking to your clients about AI and automation someone else will be.”

Those who simply try to protect their headcount will find that they are on the losing side when it comes to contract renewal. Don’t wait until renewal comes along to talk to clients about innovation and cost saving, they will see straight through this!  

There are benefits to automation that can support your business

We have seen massive change through homeworking during the pandemic, increased attrition, increased salary costs due to inflation and pressure on clients to manage costs as a result of reduced customer spend due to a hardening economy.

We have seen increasing amounts of work being placed offshore, however there remains the risk that other labour markets become increasingly competitive and then costs will start to rise again.

Customers expect automation for certain tasks, they crave it, so you need to be able to provide solutions for your clients.

“Choosing the right technical partner could be critical to your future success”

As a business you need to ensure that you have:

Remember you get out what you put in. Be sure to properly resource any implementation project, scope realistically, ensure you have a clear business case, deliverables, testing and sign off processes, choosing the right solutions is only half of the story.

Want to know more?

Join Us for our webinar on September 14th, when we will be discussing in more detail the opportunity that AI offers to the outsource community. 

Whilst these are not-for-profit organisations created to provide affordable homes and to support local communities, they must ensure that support is of the highest possible standard at the most effective cost so that the maximum amount of income possible can be reinvested where it is needed most. However, as cost pressures increase how can housing associations ensure that operating costs of contact centres and service management are not eroding the monies required to maintain and build additional properties and give more families the opportunity to have a space of their own.

As England alone needs 340,000 new homes per year, including 145,000 social and affordable homes, there is significant pressure on providers with new residents to be considered, operating costs will increase because of inflation and rising wages and as the number of residents grows the cost to service them will too.

A number of organisations have turned to outsourcing as a means to support their residents, there are many benefits to this approach of using private sector expertise to deliver this including:

The automation conundrum

Working in an environment where customer contacts are often of high emotion brings challenges. Whether moving in or out of a property or if there is a repair that needs to be made, residents are more likely to be calling at a time of stress or need and who wants to speak to an IVR when feeling emotional, not me for sure.  So how do the opportunities to bring technology and automation reconcile with the imperative to deliver a personal service when support is needed? How can the use of technology ensure that those with the greatest need are attended to first?

Perhaps one solution is to get proactive, the use of insight and analytics solutions can unlock vital information and highlight trends within the housing stock, allowing housing associations to identify and remedy an issue before it even happens.

Where agent support is required it is key to ensure that they have delivered all the essential compliance and safety information that may be needed by a resident. Use an intelligent scripting and decision making tool, coupled with speech analytics, to make sure agents have done all that is necessary on the call, providing certainty for the organisation, the agent and the resident. Layer on top coaching tools and analytics and then your agent’s ongoing development is covered, whilst ensuring that key trend data is made available to the organisation. Having these processes in place means that all the right information is passed to engineer resources accurately the first time. This reduces the need for them to go back to a job, avoiding additional costs to the organisation and inconvenience to the resident.

So in summary, effective contact management can help deliver efficiency in scheduling and planning of work throughout your organisation and therefore improve service whilst reducing outlay. Plus feeding all repair data back into the analytics engine can then help with proactive scheduling of work to reduce risk.

Differentiated service

It should be considered that housing associations are the main provider of supported housing in England with 300,000 homes for older people and 115,000 for people who need extra support.

Outsourcing providers are dealing with vulnerable customers on a daily basis across all sectors and can bring both personal and technical expertise to support and develop services in this area. Access to voice analytics software in real-time can assist agents in identifying where additional care may be needed, more than a simple flag on a CRM to signify that a resident was vulnerable at the point of moving into a property. This data is linked to contact number and query routing technology to ensure that people at high risk are connected to the right support quickly. Technology can now pick up on vital clues that a resident’s situation may have changed and therefore they need to be considered as vulnerable.

Channel divergence

People are now communicating in more ways than ever before and often on multiple devices. Conversocial have previously stated that: ‘Customer care teams today are 10 times more likely to resolve customer inquiries via a private channel, like Facebook Messenger and Twitter DM, than they were years prior. What’s more, the rate of growth of conversations using private channels has accelerated to 20 times that of conversations using public channels (i.e. 900% vs 45%).’

When customers need help they should have the opportunity to interact in the channels that they feel most comfortable in, so whilst an e-mail is great for a lengthy dialogue after the event perhaps, a call has historically been the first action if you have an issue, but what about messaging platforms? These have become the key method of interaction in day to day lives and provide the opportunity to ease communication with residents. The ability to send a message and see it was received in WhatsApp, switch to a call or even a video call so that the contact centre agent can physically see an issue and in turn provide visual reassurance.

Who can you talk to about your options?

Having worked closely with a number of housing associations we have an excellent understanding of what is required to deliver excellent customer care at an affordable price. We have built a ‘best of breed’ network of over 180+ contact centres and 100+ technology providers, which makes us perfectly positioned to recommend and source the ‘right’ contact solutions for your business. We are entirely independent, so you know our recommendations are not driven by self-interest. Our selection process is managed by industry experts, so you will always be in safe hands.

For more information, get in touch.

Sources:  

6M number from National Housing Federation https://www.housing.org.uk/about-housing-associations/what-housing-associations-do/

As the days get warmer and the nights get inevitably longer, thoughts for many will turn to handling peak demand, or for those who survived their last peak – reviewing how it went and learning lessons for the next one.

With the headwind of a cost-of-living crisis there’s uncertainty for some as to how busy they’ll be this year. However, all have the challenges of potentially needing to do more with less as increasing costs and potential recruitment issues could mean fewer contact centre agents.

So how do you balance demand and costs to serve? Service from a cheaper location, provide self-serve options, automate… all well-trodden paths with many failing to flourish if not approached in the right manner.

But isn’t voice the undisputed champion when it comes to resolving emotive issues, customers want to be able to engage via multiple channels based on their requirements. We’ve previously heard that:

So, with these numbers in mind, what are the options and where does voice retain it’s title? If staff are harder to find and more expensive than ever, then is the key to ensure that they’re being used as effectively as possible? A ‘well trained’ bot can make a difference in the triage of those 67% who prefer self-service to ensure they only speak to someone if they really need to, it keeps people free for the 83% that want to engage immediately too.

Asynchronous messaging offers flexibility for a customer if they don’t have time to talk but need support, there are opportunities using WhatsApp or web messaging, for example, to easily send photos of what’s causing the issue and switch channel to voice at the right moment.

Proactivity is key when trying to minimise customer effort. For example, my train tickets for a strike day are no use to me now. I need a refund but clearly for commercial reasons I’m not going to be immediately offered one, they’d rather I just decide to travel on another day, but that doesn’t work for me, whereas a proactive contact with a link to trigger a refund would. Other scenarios are easier though and brands making timely interventions can improve the experience for the customer, whilst managing demand and pressure on their own staff.

Voice is here to stay, especially for complex or emotional conversations and certainly when looking to make a sale. The key is ensuring that people have the right skills and information to hand, as well as understanding the insights from those contacts and improving processes where possible. Or when outbound dialling that productivity and conversion are optimised through tools which support the agent in maximising their potential. Good people are hard to find so ensure you give them the tools to do a great job, failing that there is always the option of outsourcing – a problem shared and all that.

Looking for peak demand support this year? Get in touch, we are here to help!

The Contact Centre Panel team like to challenge ourselves and each other in our thinking, to ensure that we are doing the right thing for our clients and partners. We each have our favourite reference points, experiences, “North Stars”. One reference point that John Greenwood often brings me back to, is the age-old wisdom of Robert Lieberman and “The Telephone Book”.

I’ve not read it, at some point I will, but John will take me back to the key question of “what are contact centres about?….they are about winning and retaining customers” and that is something that is indisputable. (I’m probably paraphrasing John and Robert there, but this is what has stuck with me).

Some may be more focused on winning, others retaining, but all play a key part in both. I’ve added grow because really if you aren’t growing and everyone else is, then effectively you are in retreat.

So, if that is the objective then what is your preferred method? Where are your prospects and customers hanging out, where is the best place to find them, how do you best contact and engage with them? The truth is that if you are only using a single channel of communication and type of message, then you are probably missing most of them entirely or you are simply leaving a lot to chance.

We have such an abundance of communication channels available to us, all of which are competing for the attention of your buyers. No single communication is going to bring that win. Instead, a multi-channel approach aligned to the habits of your target market is needed. Advertising only takes you so far, direct mailing of the postal or electronic variety maybe a little further. Make yourselves available for a webchat or WhatsApp messaging, but at some point a conversation is going to happen, for which the phone is still key. Real-time communication where you can hear the “unspoken” questions, the pauses, the hesitations and potential objections.

Because if we really want to win new customers (especially in a business-to-business environment), then we have to KNOW them. We have to understand what they need and when they are likely to need it. We have to build reputation based on understanding and trust. The message, whether delivered via adverts, chat, e-mail or social, will only get you so far.

After that, you have to be available for a conversation, to really listen to what that customer needs and to ensure you have the right solution for them.

Quality of service adds to reputation and credibility, so the non-sales people have a part to play too. If levels of service and customer satisfaction are high then include this in your marketing messaging, all of which can help you get a foot in the door. Speaking to prospects and customers allows you to properly understand their needs such as what and when they need/want to buy. How you communicate with them must include their preferred channels to maximise engagement and gain insight.

You’ll need to tailor that approach according to sector, profile and demographics, but speaking to people is where you start to bring all that hard work together.

How easy is it to sign up or subscribe to your company’s products or services? Pretty easy I should think (or hope). Now more than ever, organisations understand that in our hyper-competitive world, a friction-free way to make consumers aware of what you offer and to make it as easy as possible to become your customers, is vital.

However, deliberately creating friction and barriers for customers looking to leave is almost as common. We all know that it takes a lot of effort and expense to acquire customers, so surely making it a bit of an up-hill slog for customers to leave is just common sense?

Maybe, but possibly that’s all about to change. Be warned!
In the US, Ericsson-owned Vonage has been fined $100m by the US Federal Trade Commission for using a raft of measures which meant that domestic and small business customers found it almost impossible to cancel Vonage’s VoIP services.

Vonage’s services were easy to start using, with many customers offered ’free trial’ opportunities allied to less-than-transparent switches to default sign-up and auto-billing. But when it came to trying to cancel their membership, things were difficult and ‘friction’ was everywhere. The tactics Vonage used ranged across: the sophisticated use of ‘dark patterns’ on the web; making customers speak to ‘retention team’ advisors in order to cancel; hiding the ‘retention’ phone numbers; routing cancellation calls to barely-staffed phone lines with inconvenient opening times.

“Do as I say, not as I do”

The FTC gleefully highlighted Vonage’s own advice to its business customers which it totally failed to take itself – a classic case of “do as I say, not as I do”.

Vonage’s advice included:

They don’t mean us though, do they?

However, most of us aren’t in the US and not under the jurisdiction of the FTC, so does this really matter?

Well, first of all, a lot of us work directly or indirectly supporting US clients and their customer experience delivery, so it’s always helpful to know if you’re potentially part of delivering illegal customer journeys!

But equally, government regulation tends to – slowly – follow international trends. So, Vonage’s recent experience might be a $100m sign of things to come in other markets and jurisdictions. In the UK we know that government is still determined to tackle the consumer ‘loyalty penalty’ (the fact that many products and services are cheaper for new customers than for loyal, long-established users), which is closely related to a customer’s ability to exit expensive deals and relationships – and similar concerns are voiced in the EU and expressed through its Digital Services Act.

So, if part of your customer retention strategy is the creation of challenging journeys for people looking to cancel, then it may be time to do some redesign!

If you haven’t heard of ChatGPT, I suggest you read Dave’s article from January’s newsletter or do a quick google search – you won’t be able to miss it. The AI-powered language model is predicted to, and already is, revolutionising industries across the board. But what are its potential implications for the contact centre industry?

With its natural language processing capabilities, ChatGPT can understand and respond to customer queries in a way that closely mimics human interactions. This can lead to faster, more accurate and more efficient support for customers, while also helping businesses save costs by reducing the need for human customer service representatives.

According to a report by Grand View Research, the global contact centre market size was valued at USD 350.4 billion in 2020 and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.4% from 2021 to 2028. With such a large market size, there is significant potential for ChatGPT to have a major impact on the industry.

One of the biggest advantages of ChatGPT is its ability to handle large volumes of customer queries simultaneously. Traditional contact centres often struggle to keep up with high volumes of requests, leading to long wait times and frustrated customers. With ChatGPT, however, customers can receive immediate support without having to wait in line for a human representative. This can lead to faster resolution times, higher customer satisfaction rates and increased loyalty to the brand.

ChatGPT can also provide 24/7 support to customers, which is especially important in today’s globalised economy where businesses operate across different time zones. This means that customers can receive assistance at any time of the day or night, regardless of their location. This can lead to improved customer experiences, as customers are able to get the support they need when they need it.

In addition to providing faster and more efficient customer support, ChatGPT can also help businesses save costs. According to a study by Accenture, the average cost of a customer service call is between £5 and £7. With ChatGPT, businesses can handle routine queries at a fraction of this cost, as the technology can handle multiple queries simultaneously without the need for human intervention. This can lead to significant cost savings for businesses, as they are able to handle a larger volume of queries with fewer resources.

Furthermore, ChatGPT can provide personalised support to customers by analysing their previous interactions with the business, their purchase history and their preferences. This level of personalisation can help businesses build stronger relationships with their customers, leading to increased customer loyalty and repeat business. A study by Gartner found that by 2025, 80% of customer service interactions will be handled by AI-powered technologies like ChatGPT, which highlights the growing importance of this technology in the industry.

While ChatGPT can handle routine queries, it’s important to note that it’s not a replacement for human customer service representatives. There will still be situations where a human representative is needed to provide more in-depth support or to handle sensitive issues. However, by using ChatGPT to handle routine queries, businesses can free up their human representatives to focus on more complex queries, leading to higher-quality customer support overall.

In conclusion, ChatGPT is a powerful tool that has the potential to transform the contact centre industry. With its ability to handle large volumes of customer queries simultaneously, provide 24/7 support, offer personalised support and save costs, businesses can significantly improve their customer support infrastructure. As ChatGPT continues to evolve and improve, it’s likely that we’ll see more businesses adopting this technology to enhance their customer support operations and improve their bottom line.

M&S recently announced that they plan to invest £480 million in their ‘Store Rotation Programme’ which would entail “180 higher quality, higher productivity full line stores…[and] opening over 100 bigger, better food sites”, generating 20 more stores overall. Whilst growing a brick-and-mortar presence may seem surprising to some, due to the general shift towards online shopping caused by the pandemic, research suggests that high street stores are bouncing back.

Analysis conducted by PwC demonstrates that current consumer preferences between online and offline shopping are polarised. 37% of consumers prefer physical stores for enjoyment or pleasure, compared to 32% for online shopping. Additionally, 56% of consumers believe that customer service is better in-store as opposed to online (19%).

Though online shopping continues to be a key part of the buying journey, physical stores will remain significant in customers’ experiences. Stuart Machin, Chief Executive of M&S, echoes this stating that “stores are a core part of M&S’s omni-channel future and serves as a competitive advantage for how customers want to shop today.”

One of the reasons for this is that the high street offers a unique shopping experience that cannot be replicated online. Physical stores offer the opportunity for consumers to see and touch products before buying, as well as receive immediate satisfaction of a purchase. Additionally, physical stores offer the opportunity for face-to-face interactions with sales associates, which can be helpful for making informed purchasing decisions. Some retailers are also experimenting with new technologies like virtual reality, interactive displays and in-store events to enhance the in-store shopping experience and drive foot traffic. More than a third of all consumers would gladly pay more for an enjoyable shopping experience, whether that be a multisensory buying journey or receiving a human touch.

Another reason for the resilience of the high street is the fact that it is a vital part of the community. The high street provides a range of services and amenities to local residents, including shops, restaurants, cafes, and other community services. As local authorities continue to invest in the regeneration of inner cities across the UK, it makes sense that developing more spaces for retail, dining and living are a key part of these plans.

Interestingly, retail brands who are opening brick and mortar stores are also witnessing what they are now coining the ‘halo effect’. That is, the positive effect physical retail can have on online channels. On average, brands see a 36% uplift in online traffic the quarter following the opening of their physical store.

As consumers demand more channels of interaction with a retail brand along their buying journey, physical and digital retail are becoming more and more blended. As a result, brands must now look to ensure channel integration is a key part of their customer service solution. This means creating an omnichannel experience, such as the ability to purchase online and pick up in-store, or the ability to return online purchases in store.

To conclude, whilst the purpose of brick-and-mortar stores may be redefining itself, they remain a crucial part of the retail landscape and thus a brand’s strategy. The high street has stood the test of time, with a post-pandemic bounce back and research suggesting that consumers understand the value of and unique experience offered by high street shopping.