Travo Lunchbox preview: How technology will give rise to the call centre ‘super-agent’

The call centre agent of the future will become ‘super agents’ capable of handling the most complex queries as more simple requests are automated.

Find out how you can attend Travolution’s Digital Lunchbox event

The call centre agent of the future will become ‘super agents’ capable of handling the most complex queries as more simple requests are automated.

New Voice Media, a leading provider of intelligent contact centre technology, will present its vision for how the modern call centre travel should operate next week at the latest Travolution Digital Lunchbox.

The event, hosted in London by Ve Interactive will hear from a number of travel firms who are using the telephone as a key sales channel including Golfbreaks.com, Celebrity Cruises and YourTravel, as well as NewVoiceMedia and Zolv, developer of the award winning call centre rich content platform Full Picture.

In a blog post on the future of the call centre and how they will evolve over the next decade, NewVoiceMedia’s Tim Pickard senior vice president marketing, said the rise of the smart call centre is likely to lead to more remote working.

“To start with, it’s unlikely to be a physical ‘centre’ anymore,” he said. “The rise of cloud technology is predicted to lead to an increase in remote working.”

Pickard says the contact centre will become a “relationship hub” with agents taking a more proactive approach rather than reacting to customer problems.

And he said call centre operatives will become super-agents adapting their skills to meet the demands and expectations of customers and company directors.

“With the rise of ‘self-help’ and user communities, only the most complex problems will end up in a call center. Agents will need to be ready to tackle challenging issues and be able to unpick the situation to pinpoint what exactly went wrong.

“It’s therefore not surprising that in the next ten years, the average customer service agent will need to have a much wider range of skills.

“Aside from excellent communication skills, they’ll need analytical problem-solving skills, project management – and in some cases, technical training, in order to understand the finer details of the product or service.

“Alongside all of this, customer service agents will need to be able to adapt to changes in technology – from becoming an expert in every new app and social network, to utilizing the increasing range of data on their CRM.”

To read Pickard’s blog in full please click here.