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In 2023, the contact centre will remain critical to the customer experience, with the bulk of engagement running through it. However, it faces several challenges that are formidable for organisations to address within their workforces. The solution needs to be technology-driven, and with Gartner predicting that worldwide IT spending will increase by 5.1 per cent in 2023, many organisations will be looking at the opportunity for bringing advanced IT to their contact centres in the year ahead.
The primary challenge that contact centres face is the workforce. Currently, 45 per cent of call centre staff leave their jobs each year. It’s one of the highest turnover rates in all sectors. This trend is being exasperated by the ongoing impact of the “great resignation” and an extremely low unemployment rate that makes finding new talent difficult.
Employment in contact centres will always be challenging because staff are handling unhappy customers and are often given high-performance targets, and these two things in combination create a “squeeze” and low morale. Addressing this squeeze is the underlying opportunity that the channel has to present AI as a very real solution to the problem.
The Dialpad solution drives better engagement and a positive workforce
Dialpad’s specialised solution for contact centres is an end-to-end, AI-driven platform that is designed to minimise friction, improve feedback and, ultimately, help contact centres keep staff happy and engaged, and minimise churn.
Key features of the solution include:
- Coaching and monitoring: The Dialpad solution allows for real-time monitoring and feedback. It also automatically matches caller enquiries to the right agent based on availability and skill level, ensuring that friction between customer and agent is minimised.
- Real-time recommendations: Because the Dialpad solution operates in real time, it can surface recommended responses to the contact centre agent based on the nature of their interaction with the customer. This empowers agents to be subject matter experts and feel supported at each stage of the conversation.
- Consolidated interactions: Dialpad consolidates all interactions, via calling, messaging, video meetings, SMS/MMS, fax and other contact centre solutions into one, mobile-friendly interface, allowing for maximum productivity to help agents meet their targets.
- Sentiment analysis: It’s more critical to have a real-time handle on the customer experience than ever. Sentiment analysis allows for active monitoring of call handling and allows managers to focus their attention before an issue spirals out of control.
- Automated transcripts and searchable databases make it easy to identify key moments, keywords, and other data points that allow for coachable moments.
- Collect feedback from 100 per cent of customers: With a traditional feedback mechanism an organisation gains insights from just five per cent of customers. The Dialpad Ai CSAT collects and analyses data from every call – 100 per cent of customers. This produces a 15 per cent improvement in customer satisfaction in just three months.
The sum of these features is that contact centre managers are better equipped to fully support their contact agents. This assists both in terms of meeting their KPIs, and developing their skills and their careers within the sector. By feeling supported and that they have access to the resources that they need to do their jobs to the extent of their abilities, both employees and customers will benefit from a quicker and more friction-free resolution to problems.
The channel play
As with any AI-supported solution, the channel faces a significant opportunity with Dialpad, in providing consulting services and end-to-end support in the deployment, change management, and utilisation of the solution.
Across Australia, Dialpad supports its customers through a direct presence in three states (as well as New Zealand), and is actively expanding its investment into the region. “Dialpad is heavily investing in the local market to help enable partners to take their customers on the full journey,” Dialpad SVP Global Channel Sales, Mike Kane, said. “With the uncertainty in the market, organisations are turning to their trusted partners for solutions that show a positive ROI and help them to grapple with their severe staffing challenges. We see Dialpad as a channel-led organisation in the market and have doubled down on our investments.”
As Dialpad operates on an agile model – rolling out new features and solutions on a regular, if not weekly basis – a key selling point that it offers to the channel is the opportunity to use Dialpad as the basis of a managed services relationship. This is done by providing ongoing support and training and through building new revenue models.
The message that the channel can take to their customers through Dialpad is clear and concise: they can not only boost customer satisfaction in their contact centre, but also help to improve morale across the staff and stem the bleeding of talent. The promise of a well-equipped, experienced and confident contact centre will be a compelling opportunity for businesses in every sector as they look to ramp up their IT investments in 2023.
For customer enquiries on the Dialpad solution, click here.
For channel partners interested in Dialpad’s local programme and support, click here.
