“The 2026 US Contact Center Decision-Makers’ Guide” is based on surveys with 207 US organizations and 1,000+ interviews with US consumers. 

 

It provides the most up-to-date and extensive view of the issues facing the US contact center industry, identifies methods for improvement and helps customer-facing businesses be aware of what’s around the corner.

 

Findings are split by contact center size and vertical market to help readers understand how they compare to businesses like theirs, and the use of historical data over 18 years gives perspective to long-term changes in the industry.

 

Report key findings and contents

 

A few of the key findings include:

 

The average cost of an inbound call is $7.20 – 47% more than email and 23% more than a web chat

 

At 74 seconds, average speed to answer is one-third higher than the pre-pandemic average

 

18% of web chats are handled without human agents, compared to 6% in 2020

 

US contact centers spend $12.3bn per year checking callers’ security details manually

 

25% of callers have tried to solve their issue online, and failed

 

68% of contact centers put AI as a top 5 investment priority.

 

 

Chapters:

 

  • Agent Engagement, Empowerment & Gamification
  • AI-Enabled Agent Assistance
  • AI-Enabled Interaction Analytics
  • Audio Improvement
  • Attrition, Absence & Salaries
  • Cloud-Based Contact Center Solutions
  • Contact Center Performance
  • Customer Effort, Engagement & First-Contact Resolution
  • Customer Experience Measurement & Improvement
  • Customer Identity Verification & Fraud Reduction
  • Customer Personalization
  • Mobile & Video Customer Contact
  • Omnichannel
  • Omnichannel Workforce Management
  • PCI Compliance & Card Security
  • Quality & Call Recording
  • Remote & Hybrid Working
  • Strategic Directions & Investments
  • Virtual Contact Centers & The Connected Enterprise
  • Voice AI & Voice Self-Service
  • Web Chat, Chatbots & Web Self-Service.

 

To download “The 2026 US Contact Center Decision-Makers’ Guide”, as well as many other research reports, please complete the registration form below.

 

After this, you will have access to all of ContactBabel’s free end-user research and analysis by selecting the “RESEARCH” tab and choosing your reports. 

 

If you have already registered, please log in here.

 

 


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