Evolution of Work Demands (R)evolution in Contact Centers: Are you Ready?

It’s nearly 2025: Do you know where your customers are? (Of course you do.) What about your Customer Service Reps (CSRs) and the critical engine that powers them? (Maybe not so much.)

More than 11,200 Americans will turn over 65 today—that’s over 4.1 million every year from 2024 through 2027.1 With so many people leaving the workforce, skills gaps are widening across the board—particularly for critical, data-rich IT systems like IBM i® and IBM Z®.

And IT operations are aging right alongside the workforce. A staggering 31%2 of organizations' technology stacks are cluttered with outdated IT systems and homemade applications, programs, and scripts that challenge their use or maintenance. This tech clutter makes it daunting to modernize CSR workflows–a front door to the business–and improve the CSR experience.

Automation needs to step in—and step up its game.

Meeting the Challenge Head On with Continuous Modernization

On a good day, Contact Center owners face the ongoing challenging task of meeting KPIs, training CSR reps efficiently, and managing a resource gap without the need to hire new personnel. However, the swivel-chair problem—where expensive knowledge workers bounce from screen to screen across critical systems—increases training time and costs, drop-out rates and CSR churn.

Yet the model remains the de facto in many Contact Centers—at great expense, dependent on too many outside vendors, and constantly competing internally for development resources. (Not to mention the opportunity cost)

Both the bar and the stakes are high. An estimated 50%+ of Contact Center agents are burnt out.3 Meanwhile, it’s estimated that you could save upwards of $10,000 per CSR per year by minimizing swivel-chair issues.

A new white paper, “Low Automation Sinks Innovation,” describes how Contact Center owners can overcome this challenge to excel in today’s evolving work environment.

Using modern automation, you can achieve continuous modernization of Contact Center workflow.

First, it’s now possible to get real-world, process-level insights into exactly how your organization is using applications–to the screen level—so you can prioritize modernization efforts. Real-time, continuous monitoring replaces static analytics and the resultant guesswork. Second, thus armed, developer teams can deliver modernization of IBM i/Z applications–including your homegrown apps—without relying on COBOL/RPG expertise. Third, APIs and modern user experiences can become the norm versus the exception. End-to-end, integrated and data-driven tools reduce the time, cost and expertise involved.

Modernizing the Contact Center becomes an ongoing, automated process, versus a series of disconnected events or costly fire drills.

Continuous Modernization at Work

With a continuous modernization engine in place, Contact Center ops start to look more like this:

• Easily identify where to best save call time
• Routinely remove tedious steps and tasks from CSRs via intelligent automation
• Reduce CSR churn and shorten training time with consumer-class user experiences
• Connect core applications like Salesforce, ServiceNow and Zendesk
• Centrally manage CSR APIs and UX updates (“DevOps lite”)

The white paper also describes how Contact Centers can win in an era of uncertainty, by focusing on three fronts:

• Put employees first
• Modernize and embrace emerging technologies
• Automate for continuous improvement

Two strategies in particular—automation and AI—can help accelerate ROI, enabling you to strive and thrive. Preparing for AI? Learn how AI is transforming the Contact Center (or not), with 10 practical truths: from “AI needs IA” (information architecture) to what’s possible (or not) from Large Language Models (LLMs).

Best Practices, Best Life for Contact Centers

You’ll walk away with six best practices for successfully navigating the evolution of work by strategically automating Contact Centers. (Your CSRs, customers and senior management will thank you.)

Learn more about how modern, enterprise-class Contact Center automation can empower innovation. Download the white paper, “Low Automation Sinks Innovation,” today.