The 2024 Contact Centre Enterprise Insight Report surveyed more than 600 certified contact centre buyers at companies across the UK, Western Europe and North America, providing insight into the automated approach to contact centre solutions and customer experience provision.
The report also found that companies in the UK and Europe lagged behind the US when it came to AI deployment within contact centres. Only 14 per cent of respondents from the UK and Europe reported that their company had already deployed AI solutions. That compares with 39 per cent of those surveyed in the US.
Added to that, 40 per cent of companies have already been using virtual agents, and there is a commitment to increase the virtual agent ratio to more than 50 per cent by 2028.
Patrick Watson, head of research at Cavell, said, "The survey findings are incredibly encouraging for the CX industry and its stakeholders. In addition to the increasing focus on automated resolution systems, the majority of contact centre operators have plans to expand their agent numbers over the next 12 months. This promises to provide a sizeable growth opportunity for the industry to leverage."
Somewhat surprisingly, only 3 per cent of companies are concerned about losing employee skills to AI despite the fear around AI replacing jobs. Rather, AI is largely considered a catalyst in customer services to equip automated systems to handle increasing queries and allow agents to resolve more complex cases.
Respondents also highlighted focus on agent experience, with almost all companies (94 per cent) having already deployed or are planning to deploy technology to improve and monitor agent experience to tackle increasingly stressful environments for agents dealing with high-complexity cases.