Contact centres can now find out how their ability to handle multichannel customer contact compares with their industry peers with the launch of West’s new contact centre benchmarking tool. The Contact Centre Health Check evaluates whether contact centres have the capability to handle digital interactions, which are expected to overtake voice in the contact centre by 2020.

Earlier this year West carried out research, The State of Customer Experience 2017, which shows that while 88% of contact centre professionals expect digital customer experience to overtake voice in the next few years, only a handful of contact centres (29%) were able to design and deliver seamless customer experiences across multiple channels.

The health check assessment can be completed via the West website and users will automatically receive a report with their score and a list of opportunities for improvement.

Enda Kenneally, VP Sales & Business Development UK at West’s Unified Communications Services says the new benchmarking tool will help contact centres set measurable goals to help them to ‘go digital’:

“Consumers’ willingness to embrace new communications platforms means that contact centres need the capability to offer customers a range of communication channels, including self-service, or risk losing customers and revenue to more agile competitors.

“Yet many are struggling with outdated processes and technology infrastructure. This tool will help contact centre professionals identify a clear roadmap to a digital future. We hope that by assessing their infrastructure the health check tool will empower contact centres to take the actions that will make the biggest difference to their customers’ experience with them.”

The West Contact Centre Health Check builds on the data collected for West’s study, The State of Customer Experience 2017, which was published earlier this year.