"Efforts to increase the use of digital channels and improve automation rates using analytics are driving customer service technology spending, despite economic headwinds," said Drew Kraus, vice president analyst at Gartner. "The technologies on this year's Hype Cycle aim to enhance customer service, create a more seamless customer journey, and better design and direct future journeys."
Following are the four pillars:
1. Getting connected
This category of technology focuses on delivering a channel-agnostic, architected design to create customer service journeys, including intelligent self-service. For example, cloud contact center-as-a-service (CCaaS) is a cloud-based application service platform that enables organizations to manage multichannel customer interactions holistically with prepackaged applications to support customers and employee engagement. Creating a seamless customer journey across assisted and self-service channels is the top priority for customer service leaders in 2022 and accelerating CCaaS adoption furthers this endeavor.
"Cloud enables organizations to focus on transforming customer experience (CX) rather than managing the day-to-day technology needs of users, which is fueling the 22 percent CCaaS market growth to $10.9 billion in 2023," Kraus said.
Additional technologies on the Hype Cycle within this category include augmented reality for customer support, consumer messaging applications, proactive communications applications and services, and video contact center.
2. Process orchestration
The technologies within the process orchestration pillar support increasingly complex and personalized customer engagements, often via automation. For example, chatbots, a form of virtual customer assistants (VCAs), are expected to become the primary customer service channel for a quarter of organizations within five years as they evolve to handle more involved customer requests.
"Automating interactions in the enterprise has tremendous business impact that cannot be understated," Kraus said. "The emergence of sophisticated AI voice capabilities have made large-scale call center automation viable, with huge potential for savings and positive CX."
Additional process orchestration profiles on the Hype Cycle include customer engagement center (CEC), customer technology platforms and multiexperience.
3. Knowledge and insight
Innovations within this category center around the delivery of customer and operational insights, and the recommendation of next best actions across all functional groups. Key technologies on the Hype Cycle here include customer service analytics, customer journey analytics, voice-of-the-customer solutions and knowledge management for customer service.
As making better use of analytics and AI remains a top three priority for CSS leaders in 2022, many of the technologies in this category can help. One example is customer data platforms (CDPs), or software applications that support marketing and CX use cases by unifying a company's customer data from multiple channels. CDPs optimize the timing and targeting of messages, offers and customer engagement activities, and enable the analysis of individual-level customer behavior over time.
4. Resource management
This category consists of technologies that engage and empower employees, resulting in a stronger CX. For example, workforce engagement management (WEM) solutions expand on the already mature workforce optimization (WFO) market by accommodating complementary technologies—interaction assistance and voice of the employee (VoE)—that help drive employee engagement. They are expected to have a high impact on service organizations within two to five years.
"WEM brings a much-needed additional dimension to the management of contact center employees," Kraus said. "The increase in gig and freelance workers is putting pressure on customer service departments to ensure a high perception of employee experience, without which securing their commitment will be increasingly challenging."
Other technologies on the Hype Cycle within this pillar include mobile field service management and field service workforce optimization.