Cloud-based digital transformation for contact centres has accelerated at a remarkable pace since the COVID-19 pandemic began, forcing organisations worldwide to radically rethink how they connect with customers. In an exclusive interview, Anna Stokes, Director of Global Product Management at Inch House Interactive, discussed the seismic shifts taking place within the industry and how new technologies such as AI and video are reshaping the customer service landscape.
Inch House Interactive's suite of solutions is wholly cloud-based, covering omnichannel contact centres, self-service attendants, operator consoles, and workforce optimisation. According to Stokes, 2020 was a year that demanded unprecedented change. "When you ask people what their strongest memories of 2020 will be, most will circle around the pandemic. COVID-19 has pushed us to think of business capabilities in entirely new ways," she said.
During lockdowns, organisations scrambled to maintain business continuity. Stokes explained, "Work from home became our new normal. We had these long periods of no person-to-person contact, so remote communications became the primary way to connect with our customers - and that is the job of the contact centres."
Although many contact centres already had plans for digital engagement, the pandemic forced a dramatic acceleration. "They were really forced to speed things up and optimise their business with work from home capabilities," Stokes commented, listing collaboration tools and the expansion of text-based media among the most common adaptations. "Automation was introduced to alleviate pressure on customer service channels."
The Asia-Pacific region, in particular, was already familiar with disaster preparedness due to regular events such as earthquakes and fires. However, as Stokes noted, "This was the first time that they were forced to action these plans to ensure their business operations could continue in case of an emergency. And let's face it, a pandemic lockdown at level four certainly fits that description."
Many existing continuity strategies, she said, failed to account for the complete, long-term relocation of staff. "For most centres, working from home was a totally new idea. We didn't only have the obvious requirement for off-site access to hardware and business applications; organisations had to think about ways to maintain engagement both internally and externally, as face-to-face meetings were all but abolished overnight."
Technology providers have benefited as companies invested heavily in collaboration software. "Everyone's heard of the phenomenal success of Microsoft Teams, with Microsoft reporting they added 95 million users in 2020—an almost nine hundred percent growth from March to June," Stokes pointed out. Inch House itself saw record sales for its own video solution and supported more than 50 contact centre customers in transitioning all business communication to Teams, "with over a quarter of these actually in APAC."
Collaboration tools also helped address the growing issue of employee isolation. "The isolation created by work from home has significantly affected employee mental health and wellbeing," Stokes said. "Video is a great tool for that—it creates far closer engagement with remote staff than things like emails or chats, or even a phone call. That's really helped our managers identify their at-risk employees quickly."
The technology continues to evolve, now mimicking aspects of traditional workplaces. "Think backgrounds through your video that show your office space, right through to persistent video—whereby mousing over a contact creates an instant live video chat, similar to starting a conversation with a cubicle neighbour."
Supervision tools have grown in importance. "Remote management was a really steep learning curve. Organisations were concerned that remote workers could be less diligent, but we're also seeing awareness of over-productivity and burnout from poor work-life balance," she elaborated. "We saw a steep uptake in call recording and quality management platforms that really help our managers keep close to their teams."
Supervisors can now use built-in AI to identify specific interactions needing attention and support both quality standards and staff wellbeing. "A quality management tool really helps—you can monitor silently to maintain your high standards, or let the team know you're always there, not only keeping an eye on customer interactions but, more importantly, supporting their well-being," said Stokes.
Looking forward to 2021 and beyond, digital communication channels—particularly chat and video—are set to become even more crucial. "Because the contact centre became the focus for all of the business customer contact, we saw organisations really race to add further contact channels that their customers wanted to use, and the winners were definitely chat and video," she explained.
However, while the shift from voice-centric to digital channels has begun, it is not always straightforward. "We have some interesting intelligence from British Telecom showing that in some markets, voice was actually increasing in customer preference because of poorly implemented digital channel support," she noted. "There's a lot of technology out there, but it needs to be harnessed and aligned with your current and future customer preferences."
Stokes warned about the risks of poor customer experiences: "Once the customer has a poor experience, they're really unlikely to try that channel a second time. But our experience at Inch House shows that if organisations continue to put the customer at the centre of the interaction—voice, digital, or automation—and look at how the customer wants to interact, you'll almost always be successful."
Video, once reserved for personal use, has become mainstream in business communications. "Video's moved from something we only used on personal calls to becoming a norm for business interactions. Customers are not only more confident using this channel, but they're tech-ready to do so," Stokes observed. She highlighted efficiency gains: "Businesses are finding that you can reduce the time spent on calls with customers while really improving the outcome, simply by seeing what the customer is actually referencing, rather than just listening to lengthy, often misleading descriptions."
The versatility of video extends across sectors—from plumbing support to healthcare. "Video is designed to support scenarios in which patients are isolated or when medical resources are stretched. It allows the health professional to see firsthand the symptoms a patient is experiencing, allowing them to provide a remote diagnosis and treatment," she explained.
Artificial intelligence is also making inroads. "There are so many levels of AI—from an all-singing, all-dancing avatar to a really simple knowledge-based Q&A engine," Stokes said. She advocates starting small with chatbots to handle routine queries, freeing up live agents for more complex conversations. "Leave them to have intelligent conversations with your customers and giving them a fast response on the more complex enquiries will offer a much better experience for your customer and a much happier workforce as well."
AI also bolsters compliance and onboarding processes. "That central database of responses that you're using to power the bot would ensure all the information provided to your customers is current, it's consistent, and it's accurate. You can use that same knowledge base to power a bot listening into your calls and provide answers directly to your agents."
Speech analytics and real-time feedback are further innovations Stokes appreciates. "Bots that offer emotive feedback to the agent during the call—telling you you're speaking too quickly or to alter your tone—are a brilliant way to ensure you're providing a top service."
Stokes expects AI adoption in the region to surge as organisations realise both the benefits and relative simplicity of implementation. "I think we'll actually be surprised to see just how much of this news is around us today," she said. "There are so many possibilities for the contact centre—and making business so much more streamlined and more efficient."
