Still Running a Contact Center like It’s the Early 2000s? 10 Practices You Need to Eliminate Right Away
A few weeks ago, I had to contact a leading airline about a last-minute itinerary change.
I called the number listed on their website, and I was greeted with a long-winded IVR menu. I pressed all the right buttons, answered the same questions multiple times, and was finally connected to dead air.
I literally had to disconnect the call.
Frustrated, I tried their chatbot.
It responded with a “Sorry, I didn’t get that” loop that would make even a toddler throw a tantrum. After twenty-five minutes, I gave up.
Is this an isolated case only with this airline?
I don’t think so. I just gave this only as an example.
Many contact centers remain entrenched in outdated practices that fail to reflect the modern way customers live, communicate, and expect to be treated.
10 Archaic Habits That Contact Centers Should Eliminate, and What They Should Do Instead.
1. Overcomplicated IVR Menus
How often have you come across IVR menus that tell you to press ‘1’ for this, and press ‘2’ for that, and press ‘9’ to go back to the main menu?
It sounds familiar, isn’t it?
No one looks forward to listening to six layers of options just to talk to a human being. It’s frustrating and makes your brand look dated.
What should you do instead?
Use conversational AI or natural language IVR system. Let customers say what they need, and route them accordingly. Please keep it simple, intuitive, and human-friendly.
2. Measuring Success by AHT
Most contact centers praise their agents for getting customers off the phone quickly. Seriously? That cannot be your purpose.
Customers want solutions, and not sprints. Speed isn’t always satisfaction.
What should you do instead?
Shift to outcome-based metrics like first contact resolution (FCR) or customer effort score (CES). Encourage your agents to focus on solving the issue, rather than clocking out too quickly.
3. Using Email Templates That Sound Like Robots
Do you look forward to reading emails that start with:
Dear Valued Customer, we regret to inform you… And that is followed by a lot of jargon and legalese.
No one talks like that, and why should your emails alone look like that? It feels cold and distant, making customers feel like just a ticket number, rather than a person.
What should you do instead?
Empower agents to write like humans. Use conversational language, acknowledge the customer’s pain points, and tailor your responses to their specific needs. Even AI-generated replies can be trained to be empathetic and warm.
4. Using Chatbots as a Deflection Strategy
Do you throw a chatbot at every incoming query and hope that your customers don’t escalate the issue?
What is the point of the chatbot if it cannot solve the issue or escalate seamlessly? It actually becomes a roadblock, and not a helper.
What should you do instead?
Use chatbots for what they do best. Your chatbots are highly efficient in handling FAQs, retrieving account information, and supporting agents. Use chatbots for routine and transactional queries.
Design smart escalation paths to real humans when needed. Think of bots as collaborators, and not gatekeepers.
5. Still Relying on Voice as the Only Channel
Are you of the belief that voice is the only or the real way to serve customers, while other channels are nice-to-haves?
Customers today seamlessly toggle between apps, texts, email, and calls. Your customers want to interact with you on multiple channels, and voice alone won’t cut it.
What should you do instead?
You should opt for omnichannel solution that would truly integrate voice, email, SMS, WhatsApp, chat, and social DMs into a single customer view.
Allow your customers to choose how they want to communicate with you.
6. Training Agents Just Once During Onboarding
Do you run a week of intense training during onboarding and assume that your agents are set for life?
Products change, customer expectations rise, and policies evolve. Doing one-time training won’t help your agents and customers in the long run.
What should you do instead?
Your agent training should be a continuous process. You should use microlearning modules, real-time coaching tools, and feedback loops. Utilize AI and call transcripts to identify learning gaps and tailor training accordingly.
7. Tracking CSAT at the End of the Call
What happens in your CSAT process? You send a survey post-interaction and expect your customers to fill it out. Most people don’t have the time, inclination, or energy to fill them up.
Customer satisfaction is a journey, not a moment. A great resolution can’t fix a frustrating process after all.
What should you do instead?
You should track experience holistically across touchpoints. Use XLAs (Experience Level Agreements) in addition to SLAs. Additionally, you should combine sentiment analysis, journey analytics, and feedback over time to gain a comprehensive picture.
8. Outsourcing Without Integration
Do you outsource your support or collections to a vendor and treat them like a separate entity?
When your partner is disjointed, it would only lead to inconsistent service and broken brand promises.
What should you do instead?
Treat outsourced teams as an extension of your brand. Share knowledge bases, quality standards, and customer journey data. Use a cloud platform to unify operations across in-house and outsourced teams.
For instance, many of the banks that we work with outsource their collections to multiple vendors. However, they would ensure that all their vendors use our cloud contact center solution , and they retain control over the customer data they share as well. Additionally, they serve as an extension of their team, enabling them to perform and recover more effectively.
9. Ignoring Agent Experience
Do your agents have to toggle between multiple screens and systems before they can respond to your customers?
Inadequate infrastructure and clunky tools are the biggest stressors for agents, and they can burn them out. This invariably results in poor customer service.
What should you do instead?
Invest in better contact center technology and infrastructure. Equip them with platforms that have omnichannel capabilities, AI assistance, and streamlined workflows. Also, please provide them with platforms that can easily integrate with all customer-facing applications.
Give agents the authority, autonomy, feedback, and paths for growth. After all, only happy agents can drive happier experiences.
10. Treating Compliance as an Afterthought
Have you ever considered compliance as a part of your planning discussions? Most organizations treat compliance as something for their legal or audit team to worry about, and that, too, after the fact.
Just imagine what would happen if there were a misstep and you exposed your customers’ card data on a call recording. This can cost a significant amount of money, customer trust, and possibly your license to operate your business.
What should you do instead?
Build compliance into your contact center infrastructure. Ensure your platform is compliant with regulations like GDPR, TCPA, CCPA, FDCPA, PCI-DSS, HIPAA, DoT, TRAI, and RBI. Additionally, mask all sensitive data in real-time and record with redaction.
Let’s be real.
Customers today have choices. If your contact center feels like a blast from the past, they’ll move to someone who gets it.
You don’t have to throw out everything and start all over. All you have to do is audit what’s outdated, listen to what your customers and agents really say, and use technology with intent to offer better customer experiences.
And yes, it’s not always easy. It takes the right mindset, the right platform, and a leadership team that isn’t afraid to evolve.
With these, you will end up with happier customers and empowered agents.
And a brand experience that feels like it belongs in 2025, and not the early 2000s.