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To workforce management outsiders, forecasting in a traditional contact center has always been a bit confounding. Erlang C, Box-Jenkins ARMIA, exponential smoothing – oh my! And that was just when we only had basic interaction channels like voice, email, and chat! But as consumer options and expectations for communication have evolved, contact center complexity has increased. So naturally, the complexity of forecasting and scheduling has also increased!

Agents are (and will be) needed to handle more escalated, complex issues—those issues that cannot be easily resolved by the customer on their own through AI assistance. Intelligent escalation from a bot or IVR service to a live agent has implications for how we think about agent hiring, training, workforce management, and much more.

Rewind the clock for a moment to 20 years ago, when self-service first began in call centres. The approach was simple, and customers were bound by one of two options within the self-service IVRs — just press one for this and press two for that. But today’s contact centres can offer so much more to customers.

How will Artificial Intelligence (AI) affect your contact center? Whether you’re looking to impact operational costs, keep up with the competition, improve efficiencies, reduce the volume of agent interaction or improve the overall customer experience, AI is going to make a measurable impact.

Inside sales teams investing in AI + CRM integrated cloud contact center technology are particularly poised to achieve the biggest ROI. Actually, they already ARE achieving big ROI!

Are you looking for ways to boost agent performance and improve your customers experience in 2020? As you start to plan for the new year, keeping a pulse on technology innovations and understanding what your customers want will be critical to providing an exceptional experience and staying one step ahead of the competition.

As the B2B sales landscape has evolved, so have the opportunities to leverage the value of artificial intelligence (AI) in your contact center. Inside sales teams using CRM in the contact center now have access to a wide range of cost-reducing, efficiency-driving AI and automation solutions that can boost sales close rates.