Face-to-face meetings are still not possible in many places, but sales meetings, client consultations, and team collaboration must continue. Here are three trends that are shaping the new ways businesses prefer to communicate.
1Video will become the de facto standard for impactful conversations across the enterprise (not just text or voice-based)
The pandemic has accelerated video adoption across all ages and market segments penetrating all aspects of our lives including becoming a lifeline for a massively distributed workforce, telehealth visits, financial meetings, relationship building, personal check-ins, virtual educations, etc.
This year, we’ll continue to see further adoption of video across high-value conversations for both personal and business engagements. In many cases, video will be the de facto choice for things like complex troubleshooting with a customer service agent. Agents will troubleshoot via video and will fully replace the ‘I’ll email you a photo of the problem,’ thus increasing the efficiency and enhancing the relationship after effective resolution.
On the enterprise side, video conversations will continue growing because more and more sales, marketing and HR engagements have become reliant on video and advances in AI and automation will help these be even more effective.
2In contact centers, consumers and agents will no longer fear AI—they will become reliant on it
AI has quickly gained widespread acceptance in the business world and has proven to be an important element in business processes. As the labor shortage continues to persist, businesses can’t risk burning out their agents so they will look to AI technology to help offload mundane tasks agents dislike while augmenting their capabilities to solve customer issues. Without a doubt, in 2022, consumers will also embrace artificial intelligence to help make their lives easier while preserving their ability to speak to humans.
3Investment in emotional intelligence will skyrocket due to the value it brings to employee and customer conversations
As labor shortages persist, companies are increasingly looking to innovative technologies to help fill in the staffing gaps while still trying to maintain brand loyalty. By anticipating customer needs, agents can better understand consumer caller moods and anticipate potential outcomes. This is increasingly important as consumer stress is on the rise due to stresses related to the pandemic.
Consumers are stretched emotionally thin due to rising prices/inflation, the ongoing pandemic, and the effects of The Great Resignation. This year, all organizations will increase their investments in technology and services that enhance emotional intelligence (EQ) as a way to keep customers, employees and other important stakeholders engaged, and identify red flags or indicators of emotional distress. On the customer service side, contact centers will invest in technology that will arm agents with better information to help deal with increased caller stress/frustration and better-read emotional cues that will result in a more satisfactory caller experience. We will see more M&A in this market as BPOs look for tools to make their agents more successful and efficient.
