Driving contact center confidence in an increasingly uncertain market

As inflation continues to rise and uncertainty rattles markets, one thing is clear: Contact centers are more important than ever and continue to be the heartbeat of a company. Even as digital channels grow, 86% of consumers say they prefer to interact with a human being when reaching out to a company and 71% say they are less likely to use a brand if it doesn't have human customer service representatives available.

This is precisely where AI agents for contact centers change the equation. Instead of reviewing a small sample of calls each month, agentic AI contact center deployments listen to and analyze every conversation as it happens, giving leaders a complete, real-time picture of what customers are actually experiencing. That shift matters most when markets are volatile: decisions about staffing, coaching, and customer retention are only as good as the data behind them. Leaders who can see every interaction, not just a fraction of them, are better positioned to spot risk early, respond faster, and build confidence into their operations even when the broader economy feels unpredictable.

Whether contact centers’ focus is on service, sales, or both, research reveals that factors like convenience, consistency, and friendliness are what keep customers loyal—and even willing to pay a premium. According to this PwC report, customers will spend up to 7% more for car insurance if they’re given a great experience.

And often, experience is what sets a brand apart from competitors and retaining long term customers.

Doubling down on consumer experience is key. In order to do so, contact centers have increased their budgets, spending more than $24 billion in contact center software, with more investments coming. Yet, despite their efforts, contact centers are continuing to struggle: the estimated cost of customers switching brands due to poor service hit $1.6 trillion, according to Accenture.

We surveyed over 300 contact center leaders to gather their perspectives on how their business operates, assessing the effectiveness of existing contact center technology, and their plans for the future.

Our survey revealed startling insights: Nearly one quarter of respondents consider the majority of their agents to be bottom performers that are negatively impacting both top and bottom line.

To no surprise, agent performance directly correlates to confidence in the future. Overall, almost 50% of respondents do not feel very prepared for the future. Those numbers are exacerbated for companies with mostly bottom performers.

What’s the upside?

There’s a clear path to improvement: When companies are able to leverage insights derived from frontline interactions and use them to fuel coaching programs and workflows, performance skyrockets and confidence improves.

According to our survey, 88% of those using conversation intelligence feel “very prepared” for the future, compared to just 9% of those that don’t use the technology.

(For the purposes of our survey, a conversation intelligence solution is defined as a service that transcribes and analyzes agent-customer conversations, and surfaces insights.)

In this report, you will find that companies already adopting conversation intelligence have seen significant benefits across their business, including improved agent performance.

Conversation intelligence is giving leaders the ability to chart and navigate a path to growth as companies double down on both driving revenue and customer satisfaction.

Turning uncertainty into an advantage with AI agents for contact centers

When budgets tighten and forecasts get harder to trust, the contact center often holds the clearest signal available: what customers are actually saying, in their own words, right now. AI agents for contact centers surface that signal directly, analyzing every call and chat to flag shifting sentiment, emerging complaints, and new objections as they happen rather than weeks later in a quarterly review. This turns a source of operational anxiety into a source of advantage, letting teams adjust coaching, scripts, and staffing based on what is actually happening on the frontline instead of guessing. For contact center leaders navigating an uncertain market, that real-time visibility is what separates reactive decision-making from confident, informed decision-making.

There’s no longer a debate on whether conversation intelligence is worth the investment. For contact centers to improve performance and feel confident about the future, it’s not a question of if, but when.

See the whole report here.