Düsseldorf, 27.01.2016 – “The time is right for heroes“ – with this motto Damovo will be represented once again this year at the CCW 2016 from 23rd - 25th February in Berlin. (Hall 3 Booth 8/H7) On four solution stations, Damovo and its partners will present exciting live demonstrations of the newest innovations in contact centre platforms, process optimisation, video in the contact centre, and a new generation of waiting queue. Damovo will also be inviting contact centre representatives to participate in their latest expert survey.

7th June 2016 – Process optimisation is the top contact centre investment priority for 2016. That is the main finding of a survey conducted by Damovo and research bureau Pierre Audoin Consultants (PAC). The survey was conducted amongst attendees of Call Center World (CCW) 2016, the international congress trade fair for customer service, communication and contact centres that attracted 7,800 visitors. Damovo and PAC questioned attendees about their challenges and investment priorities for the year ahead.

Main challenges

In this era of digital transformation, customers expect better service, but are usually not willing to pay extra for it. Organisations therefore need intelligent solutions to help improve contact centre services. But before they are able to implement these kinds of solutions, the respondents face some challenges. 51 percent of them claimed flexible adaptation of resources to be the most important one, followed by the integration of contact channels in a consistent multi-channel system (49 percent) and cost reduction (39 percent).

Question: What are your main challenges in 2016? Top investment priorities

Improving an organisation requires investment. This goes for any organisation, including contact centres. More than half of the respondents indicated that the top priority for investment is process optimisation (56 percent). This is by no means a new issue, but the digital age has significantly changed requirements and configuration possibilities. Where increasing cost-efficiency used to be the main driver for process optimisation, equal importance is now attached to agility and the ability to react quickly to new trends or events. Investment is therefore necessary for improving the conventional routines that are no longer enough to meet modern-day criteria.

Question: What are your investment priorities in 2016?

Multi-channel capability (40 percent) was also identified as an important area of investment. Support for a wide range of digital channels is taken for granted these days by the customer. However half of the respondents count the integration of the various contact channels into a single multi-channel solution as one of their core challenges. Done correctly it can increase customer loyalty and open up entirely new areas of business. However such innovative scenarios can only be implemented successfully if the various interaction channels are also seamlessly integrated with each other and with the backend.

Dr. Andreas Stiehler, PAC: “Digitalisation is giving rise to new opportunities for increasing efficiency and effectiveness of the output in the contact centre. The results of the survey show that it is indeed orth re-evaluating existing processes and routines. Employees and managers may have good intentions for keeping pace with customer service demands, but comprehensive optimisation of the customer experience also requires an intelligent process design.”

PAC and Damovo have identified 4 key areas to consider when optimising contact centre processes

• Investigate the potential of using dynamic guides in reducing processing times and increasing the effectiveness of contact centre output.
• Question your existing overload strategy for the contact centre – and examine the pros and cons of including intelligent services for customers while they are on hold.
• Explore new business opportunities and business cases by integrating audio-visual elements such as video and co-browsing.
• Turn your contact centre from a multi-channel into an omni-channel platform – both organisationally and technically

Carl Muehlner, Managing Director, Damovo Central Europe: “In this digital age, not only is the nature of communication changing, but so are customers themselves. Contact centres need to keep up with them, and our survey results show that they are keen to face the challenges digital transformation has to offer. The main denominator is agility, meaning the ability to react quickly to new trends or events. Contact centres should, above all, give their staff the support they need in the form of tools and databases, so that they can also meet the new expectations of their customers”.

To download the full report please follow the link or visit: dialog.damovo.de/Trendanalysis2016_PR

About the Call Center World Survey

Damovo, in co-operation with PAC, conducted a survey amongst visitors to the Damovo trade fair stand at the Call Centre World in February 2016. 70 respondents took part – representing managing directors, heads of contact centres, team and project managers, heads of IT, customer service managers and sales and marketing managers with links to contact centres.