In 2025, a well-run contact center is a powerful tool for increasing profitability and reducing churn. But is your organization’s contact center ready?
Gone are the days of contact centers that functioned as stale call hubs. Today, they’re revenue-generating machines that blend advanced technology with human expertise to deliver exceptional customer experiences. If you're wondering what a contact center is in the modern age, it's far more than a place to field complaints — it's a strategic asset that can significantly impact your bottom line.
So, what does a contact center look like in 2025, and how can you maximize your contact center ROI? This article breaks down what a modern-day contact center is, the benefits of having one, key capabilities and what to prioritize.
What is a contact center, and why is it changing?
Traditional contact centers require customers to call to speak to a representative about their bill, manage subscriptions or troubleshoot a tech support issue. Customers then had to wait on lengthy holds to speak with an agent. In turn, agents had to resort to libraries of physical devices that could quickly become outdated, making them ineffective for guiding customers through basic troubleshooting.
Companies of all sizes struggled to do well with this outdated model. After all, there are only so many hours in a day to answer customers’ questions. Additionally, not all customers have the time to wait on the phone for lengthy hold times. This model created a lot of friction, leading to poor customer service experiences and increased customer churn.
In 2025, a thriving contact center is no longer a team that fields phone calls all day. Well-run contact centers use a combination of tools, like AI conversational support and human agents, to improve the customer experience while reducing business costs and improving key success metrics.
Contact centers are now strategic assets for business success
Modern contact centers are key revenue drivers that are critical to improving the customer experience and growing customer loyalty. Customer service plays a crucial role in purchasing decisions, with 73% of customers citing the customer experience as a key consideration before making a purchase.
Prioritizing good customer service helps organizations not only attract new customers but also retain their existing ones. Acquiring new customers can cost up to seven times more than keeping current ones.
Companies that fail to deliver good customer service aren’t given a second chance. 96% of customers say they’ll leave after just one bad service experience, meaning you can’t afford for your contact center to be an afterthought. This means that improving customer retention rates is critical to the success of an organization.
Additionally, contact centers that successfully retain customers can increase business revenue. Research by Bain and Company found that just a five percent increase in customer retention can improve profits by as much as 95%. By investing in their contact center, organizations can reduce customer churn, unlock new revenue opportunities and stand out from the competition.
Key capabilities of successful contact centers in 2025
Good call center management is crucial for staying competitive in the increasingly crowded telecom and broadband spaces. So, how can an organization ensure its contact center is up to the task? Here are a few key components to consider when evaluating the effectiveness of a call center.
AI-powered agent assist and automation
Contrary to popular belief, AI won’t replace human agents. Instead, successful contact centers will use a combination of agents and AI to augment performance.
For example, a study by IBM found that AI can handle up to 80% of routine customer service inquiries or tasks. This means a contact center could use AI to field customers’ frequently asked questions. By incorporating AI, companies can reduce case burdens on agents by allowing them to prioritize handling requests that require human expertise.
When agents aren’t overburdened with heavy caseloads, turnover decreases. Research shows that it can cost up to twice an employee’s salary to replace them. By taking measures to ensure agents have a manageable workload, companies can reduce the costly expenses of hiring and training new staff in a high-churn environment.
Organizations can also use AI to improve agent productivity and performance. Researchers from Stanford University found that agents who had access to AI assistance increased their productivity by an average of 14%. The most significant impact was among new agents, with an average productivity increase of 34%. This means that using AI not only can reduce business costs but can also be a powerful tool for successfully onboarding new contact center agents.
Some may wonder, “If AI can automate the majority of daily tasks, what’s the need for human agents?” Humans play a central role in the customer experience. According to the National Customer Rage survey, the number one customer frustration is the inability to speak to a human.
Additionally, 86% of customers prefer interacting with human agents over chatbots. While AI can do a lot to help agents, the agents themselves are mission-critical to creating a positive customer service experience.
Comprehensive customer service
Comprehensive customer support is no longer a nice-to-have but a must-have for contact centers and brands looking to differentiate themselves from the competition. A comprehensive support platform ensures customers have a cohesive experience across channels, whether they reach out via SMS, email or over the phone.
Good customer service means customers should be able to access consistent answers and resources regardless of their preferred channel. However, in many instances, this isn’t the case. Many traditional call centers use multi-channel support, which is siloed and inconsistent. That means the quality of service may vary depending on whether a customer calls, sends an email or uses another channel.
As a result, customers may have to reach out multiple times about an ongoing technical issue, which increases frustration and creates a poor customer service experience. This, in turn, increases the likelihood of higher customer churn rates.
By leveraging a comprehensive support platform, companies can create a unified customer experience across channels. Customers can expect the same quality regardless of how they choose to get in touch. In turn, this reduces repeat calls, improves first-call resolution and creates a streamlined tech support experience.
Customer self-service (that actually works)
88% of customers expect companies to provide self-serve support, making it mission-critical to the success of the modern call center. It’s not enough to do self-service; companies need to do it correctly.
Good customer self-service goes beyond static FAQ pages or online PDFs. These traditional self-service modes aren’t optimized for learning, and they quickly become outdated. Nearly two-thirds of people say they prefer visual learning, so online PDFs that are walls of text aren’t ideal for guiding customers through basic troubleshooting.
However, an interactive tutorial that tailors guidance based on the customer’s type of device and gives step-by-step guidance is much more effective than static text. Additionally, many self-serve solutions dynamically update, meaning you can trust that the information is always current. This saves a call center valuable time of having to manually edit its knowledge base every time there’s a new software update or a new smartphone hits the market.
Good self-service is also critical for appealing to Gen Z customers. Gen Z has over $360 billion in spending power, making it vital for any business to keep these customers happy. These digital natives grew up in the era of instant streaming and grocery delivery; they don’t like to wait on hold. By embracing self-service, companies can ensure these customers have access to instant tech support at their fingertips.
What to prioritize when future-proofing a contact center
The future of customer service has arrived. So, how can organizations prepare their contact center for the transition from call center hub to strategic business asset?
This first step is conducting a thorough audit of the current tech stack to understand what tools are already in place and where there may be gaps. If not already implemented, it’s important to explore AI customer service tools to identify solutions that integrate seamlessly with existing systems and align with business needs. Leveraging AI is essential for scaling tech support to meet growing demand while enhancing agent performance.
In addition, organizations should embrace omnichannel tech support. High-quality customer service must be consistent across all platforms, allowing customers to engage through the channels they prefer. When evaluating comprehensive support platforms, it’s important to attend product demos and ask informed questions to determine which solution best aligns with the organization’s needs.
Contact centers are critical revenue drivers
Gone are the days when contact centers served solely to handle incoming phone calls. Today, customer service plays a vital role in retention strategies and boosting profitability. By equipping contact centers with strong self-service capabilities, omnichannel support and other essential tools, broadband and telecom companies can deliver faster, more effective tech support — positioning themselves for long-term success.
Looking for real-world examples of a successful modern contact center? Verizon, recipient of the J.D. Power Award for #1 in Customer Satisfaction for Small Business, has leveraged omnichannel customer service to save tens of millions of dollars annually. To explore how Verizon has embraced technology to modernize its support and deliver exceptional customer service, download the full case study.
