11 Contact Center Statistics to Know in 2023
This article is part of a larger series on VoIP.
Contact center trends have accelerated over the last two years. Digital channels have dominated customer engagement, while contact center platforms embrace artificial intelligence (AI) to deliver efficiency and personalization. Today, customers have developed higher expectations for how businesses offer customer service. To gain insights on providing a better customer experience, here are contact center statistics you need to know.
General Contact Center Statistics
Contact center adoption is becoming common because they provide a more guided experience for customers. The following general contact center statistics help you understand the importance of phone calls in the customer journey and how businesses maximize their impact and enhance customers’ experience.
1. 30% of customers prefer to make high-stake purchases over the phone
(Source: Invoca)
Customers prefer to call your business when making high-stake purchases like insurance, healthcare, and telecom. Instead of purchasing directly online, they want to talk to someone who can guide them through the process and reassure them that they’re doing the right thing.
According to the Invoca Buyer Experience Benchmark Report, customers are more likely to call your business if they need to make a complex purchase decision.
2. 77% of customers are willing to provide personal data in exchange for a superior buyer experience
(Source: Freshworks)
Customers are willing to share personal details to receive more efficient and effective service. They expect companies to use their data from past interactions and demographic profiles to deliver personalized experiences and steer conversations based on their preferences. However, businesses have to walk a fine line if they ask about a person’s salary or online browsing history.
3. 71% of customers expect businesses already know why they are calling
(Source: Invoca)
When customers call your business, they expect agents to know who they are and the context of their query based on their previous interactions. They get frustrated if they have to be rerouted to another agent and repeat their reason for calling. If this happens, they get discouraged from completing their purchase.
Key Takeaways:
- Integrating business phone systems and customer relationship management (CRM) platforms enhances data flow in contact centers.
- Companies should continue using phone systems as the primary customer service channel. They should also pay attention to their call routing strategies to automatically route calls to the right agent the first time.
Call Center Industry Statistics
Businesses have been implementing contact centers for years, but with the advent of software as a service (SaaS), more businesses are finding that opening these centers is becoming more cost-effective. As a result of the cost of entry decreasing, these centers are becoming more common. Here’s a breakdown of some key stats:
4. The global call center artificial intelligence (AI) market is projected to reach $7.5 billion by 2030
(Source: Data Bridge Market Research)
The growing need for improved customer experiences is boosting the demand for the call center AI market. As customers expect interactions to be simpler and faster, businesses turn to AI to automate customer service and ensure high availability. In turn, companies can extract valuable insights into customer preferences to achieve loyalty and satisfaction.
5. The top challenge faced by contact centers is increasing operational costs (54%), followed by hiring enough agents (49%)
(Source: Replicant)
Today’s contact centers are facing challenges in reducing financial costs and hiring qualified agents. These challenges are somehow linked because human capital takes up the most significant portion of a company’s budget. To address these call center statistics, businesses are prioritizing automation to bring automated support into channels they cannot afford to staff.
According to the Automation In The Contact Center Benchmark Report, increasing financial costs are a primary concern for more than half of contact centers.
Key Takeaways:
- Contact center AI solutions connect businesses with customers efficiently—lowering response time and increasing overall efficiency.
- Companies should leverage their AI and automation investments—empowering agents to focus on more productive tasks and add value to customer experiences.
Contact Center Technology Statistics
Alongside phone calls, advances in technology are helping companies incorporate more contact channels into their customer contact. Let’s look at some key stats that help drive home the importance of omnichannel technologies in contact center platforms.
6. 85% of companies say increasing the use of digital channels will be their top objective as contact centers look to 2025
(Source: CCW)
The influx of COVID-driven inquiries in 2020 heightened the emphasis on digital engagement. More companies are going digital to create an omnichannel experience for their customers. Digital channels, like social media and live chat, have become legitimate customer engagement options. However, phone communication will still play a significant role in contact centers as it remains the primary option for discussing customer issues.
7. 58% of customers used chatbots & self-service portals in 2022
(Source: Salesforce)
Four in five service professionals are seeing a massive uptick in self-service since the pandemic. Customers would rather use self-service tools to get the fastest resolution to their issues over any other channels. Millennials outpaced Gen Zers regarding increased preference for self-service for resolving simple requests.
Key Takeaways:
- Adopting an omnichannel strategy for your contact center will give customers numerous options to interact with your business.
- Investing in chatbots and self-service tools will keep your company accessible to customers whenever they need it.
Contact Center Productivity Statistics
It’s critical that the call center is productive and reaches as many customers as possible during the average day. Fortunately, advances in SaaS technology are helping agents reach more contacts with greater success rates.
8. 60% of customer service agents say that AI helps them save time
(Source: Dialpad)
Customer service agents across the U.S. primarily use AI to route calls and process inquiries. This allows them to save time, answer more calls, and provide more robust customer service. With AI, they can handle twice as many calls and saw improvements in average call duration and abandon rate than those companies not actively using AI.
According to Dialpad’s State of AI in Customer Service report, when a contact center started using Dialpad AI in Q2 2020, it saw a significant increase in the number of calls handled per agent.
9. Agents are handling 41 conversations per day on average
(Source: Dialpad)
Contact center agents say basic questions like “What is my account number?” or “What is my account balance?” make up 26% to 50% of the questions they receive every day. Meanwhile, over 20% of agents say that 50% to 70% of their workloads are simple customer requests.
Key Takeaways:
- Companies should consider investing in an AI-powered contact center platform to lighten agent load and give them more time to focus on complex issues.
Contact Center Analytics Statistics
Businesses monitor vital contact center metrics and KPIs to improve the day-to-day operations of their business. These include using customer satisfaction tools and more performance-centric metrics, like average call abandonment rates and speed of answer rates. Here’s a look at some stats around analytics.
10. 40% of organizations say that customer satisfaction (CSAT) is their most commonly used metric
(Source: Forrester)
CSAT remains to be the most important key performance metric (KPI) for customer service leaders. While using CSAT scores indicates companies are becoming more customer-centric, it doesn’t provide enough actionable insights on what drives customer satisfaction. Data shows that 35% of firms that prioritize service speed are going beyond CSAT scores by considering average handling time.
The graph above from Forrester’s Opportunity Snapshot report shows that CSAT is the most essential customer service metric for companies, while zero-contact resolution ranks the lowest.
11. 80% of customers expect quicker responses from businesses, showing that average speed of answer has the highest impact on CSAT scores
(Source: Freshworks)
The shift toward digital channels has increased customers’ expectations to receive faster service delivery. Customers believe valuing their time is the most crucial factor in good customer service. They want accurate, complete, relevant answers to their questions upon first contact.
Key Takeaways:
- Instead of CSAT, actionable metrics like first-contact and zero-contact resolution will help companies stay ahead of customer expectations in terms of speed and effective service.
- Businesses should invest in areas that will increase service speed. One example is building automation and omnichannel capabilities.
Bottom Line
The changes in customer priorities and behaviors will continue to affect the call center industry in a multitude of ways. Keeping track of call center statistics will give your business valuable insights into providing customer support and staying on top of digital transformations. Check out our list of the best call center phone systems to discover the right solutions for delivering excellent customer service.