By
Jessica Levco
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Date Published: November 25, 2024 - Last Updated November 25, 2024
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Brace yourself: Some big changes are coming to the customer service landscape in 2025, according to ICMI’s latest annual survey of the industry. Our report captures this transformation through the eyes of 129 industry leaders, showing how organizations are navigating AI innovation, the hybrid workforce model and changing customer expectations.
Drawing from responses across the U.S., Canada and U.K., with 95% of respondents in leadership positions, the research offers a snapshot of an industry at a crossroads. Let’s take a look.
AI Enthusiasm Defies Job Loss Fears
Contrary to widespread concerns about AI replacing workers, contact center leaders are optimistic about AI integration. According to the survey, 66% of respondents support AI applications in the contact center, and 27% believe it’s going to have a major or extreme impact on operations in the next five years.
Most surprisingly, while half of respondents believe AI will reduce workloads within two years, 87% still plan to create new positions or fill vacancies. This suggests AI may reshape rather than eliminate jobs, creating “new types of jobs, new specializations and increased demand for people who can work alongside AI and understand how to use it effectively,” says Daniel Thomas, ICMI and HDI’s Principal Analyst of Enterprise IT.
The enthusiasm for AI is evident in the response to concerns about job displacement. When given three options about AI’s impact on their roles, just 4% expressed worry about being replaced or having responsibilities downgraded. Instead, 71% believe AI will enhance their productivity and benefit them in a collaborative capacity.
Hybrid Work Models Become Standard
The pandemic’s impact on workplace dynamics appears permanent. Nearly 70% of organizations have adopted hybrid models allowing teams to alternate between home and office work. Only 13% maintain fully in-office operations, while 19% are completely remote.
“Each organization needs to understand what works best for them,” Thomas says. “Does it make sense to have all of your employees commute into the office every day? Maybe not, but in some cases — it doesn’t make sense to be fully remote, either.”
Career Growth Essential for Retention
The data showed a concerning trend: 50% of respondents said that agents left their positions to search for greener pastures. Why?
“The usual suspects — bad fit, poor pay, inflexible work environment — were all factors,” Thomas says. “But we were surprised how much lack of career growth factored into these departures, too.”
Despite this clear connection between career development and retention, only 41% of organizations have established programs to prepare agents for leadership roles. While not all agents may aspire to positions of leadership, Thomas says organizations could provide agents with a clearer roadmap for how to advance in their careers and grow their skill sets.
“Nobody wants to work in a perceived ‘dead-end’ job, especially if they’re just entering the workforce,” Thomas says. “But if you can paint a picture of where these skills and experiences can take them, that’s a powerful start.”
Creating a Positive Workplace Culture is Challenging
For all its perks, remote work has also created significant cultural challenges for contact center teams. Our report shows that 52% of respondents said employee engagement and culture had declined under the remote model.
“When organizations don’t prioritize culture, employees can feel isolated,” Thomas says. “This disconnection likely contributes to the high attrition rates many organizations face as employees seek out more touchpoints and feedback in their day-to-day work.”
Outsourcing creates cultural challenges, too. Our report said that 45% of respondents currently outsource some of their workloads to a third party, primarily as a way to cut operating costs and expand the scope of services. Despite these gains, 50% of those who outsource find it more challenging to keep the core organization’s mission and values intact.
Navigating Changing Customer Expectations
The industry’s recent trends — from AI and chatbot assistance, to omnichannel support and turnover statistics — all share a common denominator: the evolving needs and preferences of everyday customers.
The report finds that contact centers increased multichannel support (61%) in the last year to accommodate customers looking to resolve their concerns via non-traditional platforms (like online chat, social media or mobile apps) and through self-service.
Respondents also cite the need to improve customer experience as the most important factor (at 68%) when justifying new IT purchases. And despite AI applications taking on a greater share of the workload, the need for qualified human expertise hasn’t declined as some predicted —
40% expect to create new job openings in 2025.
“These respondents are aware that customer preferences, attentions and expectations are changing, and that change means greater demand — for more coverage, more channels, more consistency and more empathy,” Thomas says.
Download a free copy of the report to learn more.