All companies know that great customer service is essential for scalable success. Call and contact service leaders are working hard every day to improve their metrics and help customers quickly resolve their queries.
But, statistics show that customer service teams are shifting from solely being problem solvers to becoming revenue generators. With the right technology and support, call center teams can provide both excellent customer service and the insights necessary for improving product, service, or company as a whole–leading to the ultimate positive customer experience.
With so many exciting industry changes happening this year, we've compiled this list of call center statistics to review the current state of call centers and the future of customer service.
Let’s get started.
Here are some interesting stats about the future of call center technology.
The global call center software market is expected to grow at 23.2% CAGR from 2022 to 2030. This growth is impacted by the growing adoption of cloud-based and virtual contact center solutions.
The market for AI in call centers is projected to reach $4.1 billion by 2027, a significant increase from its value of $800 million in 2019. Artificial intelligence is used in a variety of tools from data analytics software to AI-driven chatbots.
Customers expect to have a consistent experience when interacting with a company regardless of the channel. In fact, 38% of consumers expect agents to have the context of their queries. Seamless omnichannel experiences are going to be increasingly vital for customer satisfaction.
According to MarketsandMarkets, the call center artificial intelligence market in North America is projected to reach $933 million by 2024, making it the largest among all global regions.
A study by ResearchAndMarkets found that the global speech analytics market size is projected to reach a value of $5.46 billion by 2026, growing at a CAGR of 22.14% during the forecast period (2021-2026).
Speech analytics includes speech recognition and text analysis. These technologies can help convert customer interactions into actionable data and provide insights that can be used across an organization.
More companies will adopt self-service options to help reduce the pressure on call agents. Salesforce reports that there has been an increase in the use of self-service options since the pandemic, with as many as 58% of customers using chatbots and 65% using self-service portals. Most Gen Xers, Millennials, and Gen Zers also prefer to use self-service options for simple cases.
Self-serve technology provides customers with instant answers to their questions and allows them to easily and quickly resolve any issues. It reduces the need for customers to reach out to the call center, freeing up more of the workforce, and allowing them to focus on more urgent and productive issues.
While it has the potential to improve the customer experience for both agents and customers, these services often require companies to know exactly what the customer has an issue with. Using phone trees and other automated self-service tools isn’t helpful if the options provided aren’t relevant to a customer’s stated needs.
With Operative Intelligence, this information is automatically generated and available with a single click. You’ll see exactly what can be automated and the ROI of each suggested automation and can capture the full spectrum of opportunities available.
This process saves call centers months of time and effort – and the results are immediately available with a single click. You can be confident that the changes you’re making will give you the expected return through unique value scores for every driver, and you can track the investments over time to ensure ROI is realized.
Customer satisfaction is the name of the game. It’s an important metric and overarching goal for call center teams.
Let’s take a look at some stats.
A 2023 Zendesk report revealed that 70% of customers will feel more loyalty to a company that offers them a personalized experience. Plus, a survey by Salesforce Research found that almost 90% of customers are likely to spend money with a company if it demonstrates an understanding of their goals.
A study by McKinsey showed that companies that implement speech analytics can expect to see an improvement in customer satisfaction scores of at least 10%, an increase in sales, and cost savings between 20 and 30%.
HubSpot’s State of Service Report found that 90% of customers consider an immediate response as important or very important when they have a customer service question. Sixty percent of customers define "immediate" as 10 minutes or less.
A study by Freshworks highlights the importance of companies anticipating and exceeding customer expectations. One in three companies is investing in AI to better understand their customers and tailor customer experience and 33% of business leaders are investing in technology to improve agent productivity (while also supporting their well-being).
For example, organizations use Operative Intelligence’s customer insights platform that provides engaging, real-time analytics dashboards that make it simple to identify areas for improvement based on customer needs.
Operative Intelligence transforms the actual verbatims of customers from any inbound channels into unique drivers of customer demand. It identifies the highest-impact opportunities to improve customer experience and reduce costs.
It also maximizes the effectiveness of frontline teams by enabling contact center leaders to quickly assess performance and identify which agents need more assistance without needing to listen to every call or survey customers.
Through this data-driven approach, contact center managers can coach with precision and drive significant improvements in terms of handling time and cost. They can gain the insights needed to target and solve any issues that are driving up costs or dragging down performance.
Call center productivity is being impacted by the increased adoption of automation, artificial intelligence, and analytics.
Seventy percent of business leaders anticipate that their agents will be taking on more responsibilities this year.
How do they maintain and improve productivity levels? Seventy-two percent of those leaders believe that consolidating teams for better customer experience will lead to greater operational efficiency–and 64% already have plans to implement this strategy.
According to a report by FinancesOnline, using Big Data Analytics helps companies increase productivity by 59.9%.
Employees who are engaged at work can help boost a company’s profitability by over 20% and are less likely to look for employment elsewhere. The study also found that companies with lower employee engagement had up to 43% more turnover than companies with higher engagement.
According to research published by Statista Research Department, around 2.79 million Americans were employed at 102 call centers across the country by the end of 2022–an increase from 1.15 million in 2019.
Call centers are one part of the entire customer service industry. Here are some additional customer service stats.
According to Salesforce Research, 79% of customers want to know what data is being collected about them, how it will be used, and who it will be shared with. Customers also want the ability to access, update, or delete their personal information from a company’s database.
Gartner predicts that by 2026, 75% of customers who call customer service will do so out of loneliness–not because they have customer service issues.
Gartner asserts this will impact customer service reps by potentially leading to longer handle times, reduced well-being of reps, and increased attrition. It also predicts that by 2024, the top-cited reason for leaving a service organization will be the emotional effort employees need to perform with customers outside their official job duties.
Ultimately, this trend will make it harder for companies to determine why callers are contacting their call center. Fortunately, Operative Intelligence offers a comprehensive analysis of all inbound interactions, allowing businesses to understand the unique driver of 100% of customer inquiries.
Unlike other platforms that rely on keywords, Operative Intelligence uses direct phrases from customer speech to provide a more accurate and contextually relevant representation of customer inquiries. This enables contact center leaders to take specific actions with a measurable return on investment.
According to a McKinsey study, companies want to focus strategically on better customer experience since the COVID-19 pandemic has brought about higher call volumes.
The study shows that 61% of surveyed companies report a growth in total calls, and 58% of companies expect call volumes to increase even further over the next 18 months.
Therefore, organizations are looking to:
2022 Salesforce Research revealed that customers would like their issues to be resolved with one customer service agent instead of being referred to different agents throughout the process.
While it’s not always possible for every agent to solve every query, providing omnichannel contact center services can help reduce customer effort. An omnichannel contact center enables customer service teams to communicate with customers through various communication channels including voice, webchat, email, SMS, social media, and more.
The idea behind an omnichannel contact center is that customers don't have to repeat their issues on multiple platforms or channels to receive support. They can use whatever method they prefer and the customer service team can track all their conversations on the backend. Omnichannel contact centers provide an integrated service experience and can help agents solve queries quickly–even if customers do have to switch between agents.
Over 70% of customers switched brands within the last year–but not only for improved product quality or better deals. Almost 50% of customers also switched for better customer service, highlighting how important great customer service is to reduce customer churn and improve customer loyalty.
In comparison to call centers, contact centers are customer service departments that manage customer interactions from a range of communication channels. While call center agents use telephonic communications, contact center agents also work with email, chat, social media, and text messaging.
According to Grandview’s market analysis research, the global contact center software market is valued at $23.94 billion, with the United States having 36% of the market share.
A study by McKinsey shows that 93% of CX leaders will still use surveys to measure customer experience. However, McKinsey asserts that surveys “cannot be the chief tool used to design and deliver better experiences. They provide insights into a very narrow subset of customers and don’t provide predictive analytical horsepower and insights that can be acted upon swiftly. They are not granular enough to reveal root causes of customer sentiment and not focused enough to be the basis of investment and strategic decisions.”
With Operative Intelligence, businesses no longer need to use unreliable surveys. Operative Intelligence can determine CSAT–and all customer service metrics– simply using the language used by customers in their interactions.
Operative Intelligence ensures that businesses and contact centers:
According to a study conducted by Deloitte and Chrome OS, 62% of contact centers are looking for integrated solutions to help them reduce operational costs.
Using customer value execution (CVEx) best strategies can turn contact centers from “cost centers” to revenue generators and profit centers. Customer service is no longer only for solving customer issues–it can also help drive leads, improve sales, and create personalized user experiences.
But, contact centers need the right technology to implement CVEx successfully. Operative Intelligence empowers contact center managers to optimize the performance of their teams by providing them with a data-driven approach. This platform enables managers to quickly evaluate the performance of their agents without the need to listen to every call or conduct customer surveys.
Contact center managers can provide targeted coaching to their agents and drive significant improvements in handling time, costs, and agent performance. Operative Intelligence ultimately empowers managers to make data-driven decisions and drive better results for their business.
Advancements in AI, automated customer service options, and a more complete understanding of the customer experience is essential for call centers to meet and surpass customer expectations.
Call center leaders won’t just be focusing on how to manage customers’ issues. Instead, they’ll be thinking about how their companies can prevent these issues in the first place, whether it’s through new product features, updated messaging, or even changing company policies. Customer service teams will focus on providing solutions for reducing the occurrence of customer queries so they can pivot to revenue-generating tasks.
That’s exactly what we designed Operative Intelligence for: to unlock the true drivers of customer contacts and provide actionable, data-driven solutions.
Ready to change the future of your call center or contact center?
Book a demo with Operative Intelligence today.
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