The contact center of the future is here

Editor's note

The rise of Amazon and e-commerce, coupled with consumers' ability to interact directly with companies via web, social and mobile tools, has changed modern business. Customer service has become customer experience to better predict the needs and meet the increasing expectations of today's consumers. The call center, a hub that traditionally handled incoming customer inquiries, is transforming into an all-encompassing customer experience center that can anticipate customer demands and respond in real time across a range of technology channels. Faced with rapidly evolving options like chatbots and AI, companies are also challenged to use the technology as effectively as possible alongside human contact center agents and to implement strategies for tracking performance and productivity and measuring levels of satisfaction using the right analytical and visualization tools.

In this extensive guide, we'll explore the trends impacting contact centers and examine emerging technologies -- including artificial intelligence, machine learning, unified data platforms and the cloud -- that expedite optimization, automation, predictions, recommendations, discovery and workforce management. With our sections on multifunctional contact centers, customer experience and the role of AI, readers will learn how they can improve and fulfill interactions with customers seamlessly over multiple channels while transforming the contact center into a more viable, scalable and sophisticated profit center.