The 2022 UK Contact Centre Decision-Makers' Guide, based on surveys with 208 UK organisations and 1,000+ interviews with UK consumers, is now available for free download.

Created by ContactBabel and sponsored by Enghouse Interactive. Covering all aspects of performance, technology, HR & strategy, the report shows how the UK contact centre industry is coping with extremely challenging times, and what it's planning for the future.

2022 Guide for UK Contact Centre Leaders

Findings are reported by vertical market and contact centre size, so you can compare your performance and plans with organisations like yours.

2022 Guide for UK Contact Centre Leaders; Highlights include:

• The average cost of an inbound call is £5.42  35% more thank email and 78% more than web chat
• 71% of UK contact centres now use at least one cloud-based application
• Web chat usage has risen by 58% since 2019
• Average speed to answer is 106 seconds
• 99% of UK contact centres expect some of their agents to be remote working this year
• 98% of businesses say that AI will be important to their contact centre

The 2022 UK Contact Centre Guide also looks at Customer interaction analytics

Being able to analyse 100% of calls automatically can provide high quality information for the QA process. Additionally, this gives  a fair and accurate reflection of the agent’s performance. (p.77)

• AI assists in real-time speech analytics through applying the results of machine learning
  • Agents with the understanding of where their conversational behaviour is falling outside of acceptable and previously successful norms
  • An assessment of the meaning of non-verbal cues. These include intonation, stress patterns, pauses, fluctuations in volume, pitch, timing and tone in order to support sentiment analysis
  • Understanding the actions and information that [lead to successful outcomes in previous similar interactions. In addition to relaying this to the agent within the call.
• Real-time analytics have many uses:
  • Monitoring calls for key words and phrases
  • alerting the agent or supervisor if pre-specified words or phrases occur
  • Offering guidance to the agent on the next best action for them to take. For example, using the knowledge bases to suggest answers to the question, or advice on whether to change the tone or speed of the conversation
  • Escalating calls to a supervisor as appropriate
  • Detecting negative sentiment through instances of talk-over, negative language, obscenities, increased speaking volume etc. Moreover, these can then be escalated to a supervisor
  • Triggering back-office processes and opening agent desktop screens depending on call events. For example, the statement of a product name or serial number within the conversation can open an agent assistant screen that is relevant to that product.
  • Making sure that all required words and phrases have been used. E.g. in the case of compliance or forming a phone-based contract suggesting cross-selling or upselling opportunities.