IOT: What does it mean for Contact center Industry?

Saurabh Lakhanpal

Imagine, you are cruising through the city and suddenly the car breaks down. You get down in hope of finding a mechanic and there is none nearby. You take your phone out of your pocket to reach out to on-road assistance service and “Ting”. You get a new message and to your surprise it is from your on-road service provider and the text reads, “We noticed your car broke down at city center. Hold on tight, one of our expert is on his way to service your car”.

Or, your washing machine stopped working. You call up the service provider and you were getting ready to answer the stupid questions like what is your name, address, problem with the machine, how did it happen etc. etc. But to your surprise, the voice at the other end greeted you with your name and had the detailed information about the machine issue.

These are not fantasy stories but the effect of Internet of Things or IoT. Well IoT is not a buzz word anymore and becoming a reality day by day and technology is working as a ladder for the rise of IoT. IoT transforms physical devices into “Smart Devices” to get the act upon data from built-in sensors. Using this technology companies can provide a solution for a problem or even alert their customers about a possible breakdown. Thus revolutionizing the customer experience and take the customer service to a new level.

IoT could have huge opportunities for the contact center industry, enabling businesses to provide proactive service and to be better prepared at the time of engagement. Businesses can add value to their standard offerings by providing proactive support to their customers. Contact centers will not only rely on the outdated information fed in at the time of purchase but also have the current information about the device. Customer service will be highly impacted by this. Now customers will not have to wait in long queues and listen to the boring MoH or go through account related questions or try to explain the issue to the agent. From operations/business perspective, they will benefit by:

• level of customer service will be greatly increased
• agents will be subject matter experts
• increase in self-service channel usage
• cost savings due to more streamlined and proactive approach

With the rise of IoT, a new channel will be added to the omni-channel experience. Customer’s IoT products will be interacting with the contact centers on their behalf and customers will expect a seamless and continuous interaction. It will pose challenge for contact centers who are not ready to chalk out an IoT strategy.

Contact centers who will be able to move with the time and treat IoT as a channel for customer service will find themselves with a service differentiator in a world where customers expects businesses to know them. IoT can act as a wonderful tool for Contact Centers to deliver exceptional customer service that too cost effectively.