There’s no question that contact centers are evolving to support the digital world in which their customers live – where people buy online, interact on social media, and communicate via video. Brands are expected to be agile in providing omni-channel support, where interactions might begin via an online form or live-chat then be continued seamlessly over the phone with all the relevant context intact.
However, despite the wide variety of customer service channels available these days, voice interactions will always remain at the heart of the contact center — and are even growing in importance.
Two Reasons Voice is Your Biggest Asset
Reason 1: We Are Natural Communicators
The first reason voice is so vital to customer experience is because we are first and foremost communicators. The human ear is incredibly sensitive to even the slightest variations in vocal tone. Listening is a skill we’ve honed over thousands of years, and it’s just as relevant today, especially within the context of contact centers. There are subtle nuances when communicating vocally that are incredibly difficult to replicate via other platforms. When things go wrong or get complicated, we rely on getting things resolved in the most effective way possible – speaking and listening.
Reason 2: Complexity of Customer Calls
The second reason voice is so important is because nowadays, the vast majority of voice calls customers make are due to complex or immediate issues that need to be resolved rapidly. In the past, an escalation was an agent going to a manager. Today, calls to a contact center represent the escalation itself. This is because these calls are significantly more complicated than the routine interactions that were common a decade ago – making capturing every small detail of emotion and intonation absolutely crucial to the customer experience.
A recent study found that over 75% of respondents could not resolve their problem through self-service alone, and 98.5% will call if their situation is serious or time sensitive. Situations such as your credit card being stolen or an urgent airline flight change, require human touch. During moments of crisis, an empathetic connection makes callers feel cared for and their issues understood. Yet, often when customers are at their most frustrated, worried, or under stress, that call experience is lacking. A frequent pain point for customers is not being able to understand what agents are saying or not being understood themselves. This regularly comes down to poor microphone quality or too much background noise transmitted through the agent’s headset.
Best Gear. Better Customer Experience.
Heightened customer expectations are making high-quality voice performance non-negotiable in the modern contact center. At Poly, we’ve been creating innovative voice experiences for over 50 years, providing improved audio intelligibility so that customer service providers can resolve complex calls capably and confidently.
Advanced noise cancelling functionality, featured on our EncorePro 700 Series headsets, is essential when attempting to meet the demands of loud, busy contact centers.
(EncorePro HW725-USB binaural, noise-canceling headset)
Today, agents are handling more calls than ever before, which has resulted in the transformation of staffing models and technology to reflect this. This has called for increased investment in remote workers and the use of softphones, which has also allowed organizations to scale up support. Equipped with a high-quality headset, agents can provide the exceptional voice experience that customers crave, from anywhere in the world.
So, while the contact center is evolving to cater for an omni-channel environment and the changing agent landscape, that doesn’t mean voice is going away any time soon. In fact, voice has become more valuable than ever in driving the customer experience.