A few years back, it seemed forecasters everywhere were predicting the demise of the call center as self-serve digital channels accelerated up the steep curve of early customer adoption. More recently, with the advent of automation in the form of Intelligent Virtual Assistants, natural language processing and other artificial intelligence-based tools, the extinction of the call center was revisited.
It is true that digital interactions are increasing. According to this 2018 McKinsey research, 48% of all customer care interactions will be digital by 2020.1 But another study states that a majority of consumers ranked speaking with a human on the phone as their preferred communication channel with a business.2 When you peel back the onion, its clear that digital channels and call centers need to work in concert to optimize customer engagement.
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