The Future of Call and Contact Centres: How AI is Driving Smarter Customer Engagement
How call and contact centre technologies are evolving
AI technologies, and the application of these technologies, are evolving rapidly. As a result, generative AI is reshaping call and contact centres, enabling smarter ways to manage and improve customer interactions.
As an example, AI can intercept and route calls to the most suitable agent, speeding up the customer journey and reducing frustration from multiple touchpoints. The use of these technologies is not about replacing humans but rather about empowering agents and driving efficiencies. By automating repetitive tasks and presenting relevant context—such as past interactions, customer history or likely needs—AI ensures that staff have both the time and the insights to deliver a more effective service. Agents can then focus on building stronger relationships, solving complex problems and adding real value, rather than being burdened with administrative processes.
Features and capabilities currently in demand
There is growing demand for analytics capabilities that drive quality, performance and customer experience. Customer communications insights help organisations ensure that agents are suitably skilled, supported and trained to handle interactions effectively.
Conversation analytics powered by AI helps organisations to quickly and regularly gain a deep understanding of customer needs, preferences and behaviours, empowering them to shape the services on offer and drive engagement strategies with greater accuracy. Sales enablement strategies can be strengthened using tools that help agents identify and close opportunities when they arise, ultimately driving revenue.
Compliance capabilities are also a critical requirement in call centre teams. Organisations need to ensure compliance policies are adhered to, such as including the necessary terms and conditions on a call, referencing any essential information, handling financial matters sensitively, or following credit card redaction policies. Conversation analytics features fulfil this demand.
How resellers and MSPs can identify call and contact centre opportunities
Resellers and MSPs can find new call and contact centre opportunities within their existing customer base by widening their addressable market. Organisations with individuals that handle a high volume of calls but are not based in a formal contact centre environment will often benefit from advanced contact centre features such as call recording, conversation analytics and CRM integration. These capabilities can significantly improve how they manage customer engagement and service quality.
Another opportunity lies with customers who already use unified communications (UC) platforms such as Microsoft Teams. Many of these businesses may not be fully aware of the contact centre tools available to them. By educating these customers on the extended capabilities within their existing platforms, resellers and MSPs can position themselves as strategic partners—helping organisations unlock untapped value and efficiency.
Future developments in call and contact centre technology
The contact centre market is set to be shaped by a new wave of intelligent technologies that will further transform customer engagement and agent performance.
Generative AI will play a central role in boosting productivity. It moves beyond simple automation to provide dynamic support such as drafting responses, summarising calls and suggesting next-best actions in real time. Alongside this, conversation analytics will become more advanced, offering organisations deeper insights into customer sentiment, intent and preferences drawn directly from live interactions.
New copilot tools, in combination with conversational analytics, will give agents intelligent, personalised and real-time assistance. They will have access to summaries of discussions, guidance on how to resolve queries more effectively and advice on sales opportunities.
Personalisation will be a key outcome of these developments. Customers will receive tailored experiences based on their call history and previous behaviour, all informed by accurate context. They will also be able to ask specific questions and create dashboards tailored to their requirements from a simple chat prompt.