Hiring Challenges and Rising Customer Expectations Are Driving a Move Toward Digital-First Service

For many companies, delivering an excellent customer service experience has never been more challenging than it is right now.

Customers are engaging with brands through digital channels at unprecedented levels—and they expect a great customer experience regardless of their entry point.

And unfortunately, the ongoing labour migration has left many companies with fewer contact centre personnel to meet these increased expectations.

In today’s landscape, where we’ve seen some 4.5 million Americans leave their jobs, you can’t hire more people to close the chasm between available resources and customer expectations—which we at Verint call the Engagement Capacity Gap. Many contact centres are struggling to fill agent roles, leading to longer hold and handle times through the traditional phone channels. And when customers can’t get through over the phone, they’re moving to other channels.

Unfortunately, there’s no sign that hiring for these jobs will become easier any time soon.

At the same time, the boom in ecommerce—which grew by almost 20 percent from 2020 to 2021 in the US, according to a report from Statista—isn’t slowing anytime soon. By 2025, that same report estimates that American consumers will spend more than $1.3 trillion online.

As customers move increasingly online, they’re also seeking service in online channels—and expecting the same level of excellent service they’d get from a human agent.

The hiring struggle, in tandem with an increasingly online buyer, clearly poses a problem for companies across industries. This challenge is compounded by the fact that customers are encountering increasingly sophisticated digital-first solutions in their interactions with brands ranging from healthcare to travel.

Exposure to this sophistication has led to an expectation for high-level, actionable self-service across channels, a trend that, according to this Verint report, we expect to see continue.

This is why companies need digital-first customer engagement solutions that work across channels that build loyalty and drive growth. To meet these expectations, they need a holistic approach to their digital self-service that provides a seamless customer service journey that can provide actionable outcomes—not just answer questions.

At Verint, we’ve been delivering exceptional customer experiences to some of the world’s most recognisable brands through industry-leading digital solutions for decades. Our suite of Digital-First Engagement Solutions includes next-gen technologies that orchestrate meaningful interactions across channels.

Verint Messaging & Verint Social: You need to meet customers wherever they are, including in social media or private messaging channels. Verint Messaging allows for actionable interactions and immediate resolutions through Facebook, Twitter, Google’s Business Messages, Apple Business Chat, SMS, and WhatsApp Business messaging channels.

Verint Community: Deliver your customers not only the information they’re looking for through articles and FAQs, but also forums that connect them with other loyal users in a private, customised community for an unrivalled asynchronous experience.

Conversational AI: Intelligent virtual assistants and chatbots equipped with the sophistication needed to not just meet customer needs, but also deliver empathetic responses and actionable resolutions.

Knowledge Management: Verint Knowledge Management provides a single source of the truth across all communication channels so agents can quickly pull the right answer to a customer question from any interaction channel, speeding up interaction handling times and improving first contact resolution.

Engagement Orchestration: Turn your customer service personnel into super agents by defining your unique customer service processes with multi-step workflows that span teams and departments.