It’s good practice to reflect on what’s important to us, and at Hatch, that means paying attention to contact centers for home improvement businesses! As we come into the homestretch of the year, here’s a look at what we’ve seen as the top contact center trends going into 2024.
Let’s dive into those trends!
The top 6 contact center automation trends of 2024
Here are six key trends we’re seeing in call centers for home improvement businesses this year, in company culture, customer experience, sales and marketing, and more.
1. WFM solutions
Workforce management (WFM) solutions have been around for a while but COVID-19 and the global pandemic forced the world to push for more accessible solutions. Many businesses, contact centers included, went from in-office only to a hybrid or remote solution. This meant new WFM solutions needed to be considered to cover the potentially more flexible and spread out employee base.
Tracking average handle times, contact abandonment rates, and WFM analysis efficiency is critical for call center success. As with any business, call centers want to maintain or improve their ROI, and a WFM solution can help in tracking important insights or showcasing key metrics. But how do you pick the right solution?
Here are some critical components to have figured out when looking at solutions:
- Defined WFM requirements
- Means of ranking your vendor options
- Organized vendor demos
- Use cases for your WFM solution
- Solution dealbreakers
You may also want to consider your current ROI and goals for once a solution has been implemented. Using a WFM calculator, like the free one offered by CommunityWFM, can help to determine your starting point or end goal for your new solution.
2. Employee culture & retention
Speaking of more flexible workforces, the culture of contact centers has seen a drastic change.
One of the biggest expenses of modern business is recruiting and onboarding. Experts have shown that the loss of one employee can result in up to 4x, or 400%, of that employee’s salary to hire a replacement. It’s not just the financial cost that makes this expensive either.
Knowledge and time (spent building employee knowledge and rapport with clients) are massive costs to organizations looking to last beyond the next year or two. When employees stay for more than a year, mentorships can be implemented and positive cultures begin to form. But retaining employees means investing in their skills and happiness.
You can invest in your employees by offering:
- Schedule flexibility
- Mentorship programs
- Professional development reimbursement
- Competitive salaries and benefits
Aside from not being able to nurture and retain knowledge, a company that has a new representative every couple of months isn’t going to build a trusting relationship with clients. Which brings us to customer retention.
What do these call center trends mean?
While trends don’t necessarily stick around, the trends thus far this year are going to have long-term implications. The digital age is only expanding. AI is only improving. Customer and employee experiences will only continue expecting more value. So what do these trends mean for contact centers today?
First and foremost, contact centers need to be comfortable with the idea of investment, specifically investing in technology and their employees. What happens on the inside can always get out!
It’s also worth mentioning the importance of knowing what the customer sees and experiences. When so much of the process is automated, digital, and conducted behind-the-scenes, it’s easy to lose sight of the true purpose. Invest in the customer experience as much as possible, and keep in mind the customer pain points you’re actively trying to solve.
Keep an eye on these contact center trends
To recap, contact centers this year are focusing on:
- Workforce management solutions
- Employee culture and retention
- Customer retention
- Personalized customer experience
- AI for customer engagement
- AI for data analysis
Moving forward, these trends mean it’s time to invest in:
- People
- Technology
