Contact centre predictions for 2022

19th November 2021

By Leaha James

Every year, we peer into our crystal ball to detect contact centre trends for the coming year. So what’s 2022 got in store for us? Read on for our top five predictions…

Our predictions for 2021: how did we do?

Revisiting your predictions is like looking at old photos of yourself – embarrassing to say the least! Fortunately, our forecast for 2021 has aged pretty well.

Remote working: here to stay. Increased self-service: definitely. Multimedia sharing: in its infancy. And as for video calls, we’ve led the way at Connect Assist with our British Sign Language service, Sign Assist.

For 2022, we think all of these contact centre trends will continue, and we’ve come up with a few more too.

1. A more personalised customer experience

The organisations of tomorrow won’t be looking merely to meet customer expectations – they’ll want to anticipate them, too. Similar to how streaming services suggest what you should watch next.

That means using customer data to tailor users’ contact with you: everything from the tone of voice you use, to the services you offer.

Of course, you have to stick to GDPR – but 44% of Generation Zers (born between around 1995 and 2010) are happy to trade personal data for a more personalised experience, and the same proportion will stop visiting a website if it doesn’t predict their wants or needs. So, when it comes to contact centre technology trends, this is one not to miss. Start getting ready now!

2. Improved data analysis

Data insights can do more than just point ‘Bake Off’ viewers (Giuseppe for the win!) in the direction of ‘Extreme Cake Makers’: they should be shaping every aspect of services.

Voice and text analytics will become more widespread in 2022 as contact centres seek to understand the content and emotion of chats, tailoring services accordingly.

And AI will be improving all the time, powering your chatbots and freeing up your staff for trickier calls.

3. Remote and hybrid working

No prizes to us for guessing in late 2020 that we’d still be working remotely in 2021. But now, the buzzword is hybrid working: some days in the office, some at home.

This means it’ll be even more important to switch your operations to the Cloud – just as we predicted last year. Team managers need to think about how to keep their hybrid team connected and engaged. And make sure your contact centre technology is properly secure!

4. Increased omnichannel engagement

This is a bit of a cheat, because we say this every year, but contact centres are no longer all about phones.

Social media in particular is becoming ever more important, with the number of platforms proliferating.

You can’t be across all of them, but you can make sure that all the channels you offer are well integrated. So a customer can phone you one day, follow up by WhatsApp the next – and your contact centre technology should ensure their queries are seamlessly linked.

5. Augmented reality (AR)

OK, so maybe AR glasses won’t be replacing the traditional headsets in contact centres during 2022, but Goldman Sachs predicts the AR market will be worth $80 bn by 2025, and we think it’s one of the key contact centre technology trends to look out for.

AR is all about overlaying real scenes and objects with computer-generated imagery and sounds. It can be used to offer remote assistance, for instance by overlaying a piece of hardware with a set-up diagram.

Sounds sci-fi? The tech might already be in your pocket – many smartphones now support AR. It’s down to contact centres to work out how to take advantage!