Well, there are many trends affecting contact centers these days. There has been an enormous push to improve the customer experience and reduce costs. But here are three trends that are causing significant impact:

1. process automation or optimization
2. customer lifetime value management (CLTV Management)
3. more regulations and legislation 

I  have also noted what I call trend 2.5: encouraging customers to use self service channels, but in a way that could be counted under #1.

Process Automation:

For a more in-depth look at this read my blog entry Intelligent Automation for Customer Support. The long and short of this trend is to increase productivity by looking at the processes involved in customer support and automate those that are repetitive, time sensitive, or mission critical. An example is ticket escalation according to a predetermined business rule. If the rule is met, the system takes care of the escalation, it does not depend on a person to notice.

Customer Life Time Value Management:

In CLTV, customers are judged, not only by how much money they have spent with you but a considered estimate of how much money they may spend with you in the future. As you can imagine this is a pretty inexact process because it calls for attempts at precognition, but it is a good exercise to undergo if you need an idea of the possibility of repeat business and whether the money the customer spends will outweigh what you spend to court and keep that customer.

Dealing with More Regulation and Legislation:

This shouldn't come as a surprise for anybody in the financial industry, but there are numerous areas that are becoming more highly regulated. A few always have been but the regulations have become more stringent or onerous, others have not previously been acquainted with the requirement to adhere to a succinct set of rules.

And, as long is there is law in the land, more laws will be passed that could impact your business, including how you interact with your customers, what records you keep, how long you keep them, in what form you keep them, your security plans, and on and on and on.

So along with trying to keep up with what you have been doing, more stuff is coming down the pike. And I say forewarned is forearmed. This doesn't mean jump into a bunch of initiatives to meet regs and legs. But you must remain aware of which way the wind blows and have some preparations in hand to start dealing with them.