When you live where I do, it could be easy to take our magnificent Kentucky sunsets for granted. No, I don’t mean the bourbon-infused libation but the close-of-day show the sky puts on in the Bluegrass State.
It’s these fleeting moments in time that urge us to reflect on what we’ve achieved in the last 24 hours. And with the end of the year almost here, these slivers of beauty also stir hope for what’s ahead — for me, anyway. While cynics in the healthcare industry are wringing their hands over inflation and labor shortages, rising pharmaceutical costs, and slow growth in provider reimbursements — all very real concerns — I still see reasons for optimism.
Opportunities to enhance the patient experience and build the bottom line in 2025 are within reach. We just need to think critically about where to focus our efforts, and resist getting distracted by the noise and forces beyond our control. Each year, TTEC deconstructs customer experience (CX) trends taking shape across healthcare, travel, banking, retail, hospitality, transportation, and more, to suss out which tailwinds hold greatest potential for each industry. This research and insights form the basis for the just-published strategy guide, “2025 CX trends: 5 ways customer experience ushers in a new era.”
My team and I digested the findings and extracted the most compelling bits that payers, providers, pharmacy services, and device manufacturers should care about when planning strategy for the year ahead.
AI and what it’s not
Let’s start with AI. AI is not a strategy. Not a crutch or replacement for people. It’s not a technology micromanaged by IT. AI has been woven into business operations at every level, from the contact center to the C-suite, and innovative new use cases are inspiring.
The vast majority, 77%, of payer and provider healthcare executives put AI at the top of their priority list for emerging technology investments, according to a recent PwC survey. Other research found that 72% of CX leaders across all sectors expect AI agents to be an extension of their organization’s identity, reflecting its value and voice.
We all saw the impact of Gen AI in 2024. Get ready for the next iteration in 2025: “Agentic AI,” capable of performing more complex actions than is possible with machine learning and gen AI — with minimal human supervision. Hyperscalers like Google and Microsoft have taken the lead here and it’s projected this area will grow dramatically, enabling more day-to-day decisions to be made autonomously. For more on agentic AI, check out the recent issue of Customer Strategist Journal.
Trend 1: AI integral to the contact center
AI-powered virtual assistants provide customer sentiment analysis, question prompts for contact center associates, chatbots, and automated documentation logging. All these supportive roles improve performance of contact center associates, freeing up time and attention to create more personalized, empathetic interactions with members who call for help.
That’s the people-facing aspect of AI and the behind-the-scenes value proposition is just as compelling. AI bots like RealSkill enhance training by engaging new hires in role-playing exercises to practice new skills in simulated customer interactions. These bots provide real-time feedback and customized coaching, equipping associates to deliver excellent CX in a live environment.
Once interacting with members, associates are expected to be knowledgeable, to think on their feet, and provide correct and complete responses. Let Me Know, an AI-enhanced tool helps them to do just that. This generative AI answer system uses large language models (LLM) to anticipate and serve up the information needed “in the moment.” In one pilot test, 86% of associates liked the tool so much, they used it for nearly every call they handled.
Trend 2: A new type of workforce emerges
All this technology innovation is reshaping the role of our healthcare advocates in the contact center. With more routine tasks offloaded to AI and automation, the volume of complex and sensitive customer interactions routed to human associates only grows. Soft skills like compassion and empathy take on greater importance, and technical skills remain essential as our people learn how to use these new tools.
AI has proven indispensable at helping contact center leaders understand on a deeper level why their top performers consistently meet and exceed goals.
LevelAI, for example, reviews 100% of member interactions across all support channels (rather than the more typical 1%) to identify those specific, nuanced behaviors that lead to best results. With that intelligence, coaching can be focused on an individual level, for greatest impact. One of our clients using LevelAI saw $2.5 million savings in the first year alone, while also improving experience metrics for both customers and employees.
Trend 3: CX sheds its borders
Everyone is thinking about cost containment as healthcare faces the big squeeze. Utilization of services is rising, costs are going up, and staffing shortages persist. Outsourcing contact center operations has never looked so good. Nearshoring and offshoring bring great efficiencies without sacrificing quality of the customer experience.
GE Healthcare, for example, once again earned coveted Center of Excellence certification from Benchmark Portal this year. The honor recognizes the organization’s continuous improvement mandate that’s delivered consistently improving KPIs such as 93% QA scores, year after year — from a contact center located in the Philippines.
Offshore operations offer a wide range of benefits beyond competitive costs and AI plays a role in enhancing the experience here, too. Accent softening, noise cancellation, and real-time translation and grammar tools, all AI-driven, enable associate-member interactions that are frictionless, free of stress, and reduce the need to repeat information exchanged. Right now, TTEC is developing an intriguing new, real-time language translation tool that enables an English-speaking person, for example, to converse naturally with someone speaking in their native Portuguese.
Leveraging AI tools like these, one healthcare contact center in South Africa saw CSAT improve 8% while audio complaints plummeted 78%.
These are just some of the developing trends that make me optimistic about the year ahead. Let’s not let the sun set on 2024 without at least giving some of these opportunities consideration. For a broader look at all trends, check out “2025 CX trends: 5 ways customer experience ushers in a new era.”
Photo by Billy Spegal
