Retail customer service statistics you can’t ignore: What’s in store for the contact center of the future

Retail customer service statistics for agents’ KPIs, channels, and AI investments.

We’ve previously highlighted the retail customer service statistics that translate today’s challenges and pain points for CX professionals and contact center agents. Now, we present you the most relevant retail customer service statistics for agents’ KPIs, new channels, and AI investments.

Customer service agents will be critical for business growth.

With AI increasingly integrated into retail channels, agents are tasked with fewer transactional engagements and more complex interactions. They are already being held accountable for revenue generation and business outcomes beyond CSAT and NPS scores. In the future, agents are expected to be key to strengthening customer relationships.

• 81% of retailers currently hold agents accountable to KPIs that include new revenue generated.
• But within five years, nearly 9 in 10 say that agent KPIs will include agent influence on future relationship growth with a customer.

Social media will surpass email and voice.

Besides being held accountable for customer relationship and revenue generation key performance indicators (KPIs), agents are expected to manage interactions across more channels than before. Going beyond the traditional phone, email, or live chat for which most agents were hired, these new channels will require etiquette, tone, and time management training. Being able to consistently engage with the customer across multiple channels is a top challenge for today’s agents.

In one year, retail CX professionals expect contact center agents to communicate with customers through:

• Social media: 63%.
• Email: 61%.
• Voice/phone: 61%.
• Chat: 54%.
• Video chat: 49%.
• Text messaging: 38%.

Text messaging channels have the biggest expected growth rate year over year (31%). Social media, in particular, is expected to surpass email and voice as the main communication channel in just one year.

Despite being overpassed by text, voice is still a choice for many customers—retailers must invest in mixed deflection tactics with modern voice channels, like voice-based virtual agents.

Retail investments will revolve around AI.

To overcome the challenges, contact centers will need to make investments in new tools and technologies. AI will have a fundamental role in unlocking the full potential of retail customer service and agents.

Retailers are currently applying AI largely for information and service guidance, but there’s a greater opportunity for further contribution:

• 80% of retail CX professionals believe that AI can help them overcome their reporting and analytics capabilities limitations.
• Fewer than 33% of retailers use AI capabilities such as intelligent knowledge bases, virtual agents, and chatbots.
• Over 50% of retailers intend to increase their customer engagement AI capabilities investments in the coming year.

Capabilities for which retail CX professionals expect to increase investment in the next 12 months:

• Intelligent knowledge base: 62%.
• Social media-based commerce: 59%.
• Voice-based AI virtual agent: 56%.
• Website tools: 56%.
• Natural language-based chatbot: 55%.
• Mobile scan-and-go: 53%.
• Online discussion forum: 51%.

Download the report for an analysis of these and other retail customer service statistics and dig deeper into agents’ and AI’s roles in retail contact centers.