Omni-Channel Contact Centres:
A Future Competitive Advantage for Industrial Manufacturers

Customer expectations have fundamentally changed

Customer expectations have been irreversibly changed. Industrial manufacturers that once employed good old-fashioned telephone support now have to contend with customers who expect the seamless, integrated experience they get from leading B2C brands. The solution is in omni-channel contact centres that combine phone, email, chat, social media and self-service under one roof.

This is not just an operation upgrade. It’s a strategic shift that repositions contact centres as drivers of both service excellence and sales growth.

From Support Hotline to Growth Engine

Modern contact centres have evolved much beyond their traditional role as issue points. They are now central hubs that take care of the complete customer life cycle. Right from initial sales inquiries to post-sales service, scheduling of maintenance appointments, and seeking opportunities for expansion. This is particularly important for industrial manufacturers, where products are complex and customer relationships as well as sales cycles are rather long, making every interaction strategically important.

This shift from reactive service to proactive interaction turns the economic basis of customer service on its head. Contact centres, which had to deal with just complaints and technical issues before, now contribute to revenues through contract renewals for service, spare parts, and equipment upgrades. They’re now on the front line to both protect current revenues and generate new business prospects. So how can industrial companies leverage their contact centres to maximise both customer satisfaction and growth potential?

Why Industrial Service Can’t Stay Old-School

Equipment used in industry must be constantly supported throughout its operational lifetime, which could span decades. When production lines fail during non-working hours or customers need immediate support in remote locations, old-fashioned support models are not good enough.

New omni-channel features for the contact centre address exactly these issues and increase efficiency and experience for both Customers and Contact Center Agents during fault identification, while round-the-clock support for other queries is managed by AI-powered virtual assistants. A study on generative AI in customer services by the IBM Institute for Business Value highlighted that 85% of executives say that generative AI will be directly interacting with customers with personalized answers and AI will help in better understanding customers by collecting and analysing sentiment-based metrics.

These types of solutions take support beyond conventional boundaries without increasing costs proportionally.

From Cost Management to Value Creation

It is typical for most industrial contact centres to remain with legacy limitations: siloed infrastructure, lack of consistency in the service experience, and limited visibility into the customer journey. Modern, Cloud-based Contact Center solutions offer a unified solution, consolidating all interactions in a single location that gives context to agents and eliminates redundant work.

The argument for transformation is compelling. Our engagement with clients in the DACH market and across the globe demonstrates:

• 20% decrease in call volumes with successful self-service
• Handling time improvement of 15-20% due to simpler access to information
• Customer satisfaction boosts of up to 10NPS points
• Identification of upselling and cross-selling opportunities through successful systematic detection and resulting new revenues

Most importantly, modern contact centres are great at turning service interactions into sales leads. Informed customer service teams see equipment age, usage patterns, and maintenance history. With this information, they are able to proactively suggest appropriate upgrades, additional services, or preventive maintenance agreements. This is not opportunistic selling—this is valuable advice that helps customers get the most out of their business. The question is: How can your contact centre evolve from a support function into a strategic revenue driver?

Adjusting to Altered B2B Purchasing Habits

It is a consistent trend, that B2B decision-makers increasingly use and prefer remote or digital interaction for introductory sales queries and everyday service needs. This is a cross-generational effect and represents a structural change in the manner industrial buyers want to engage with suppliers.

Today, industrial customers expect to reach out first through their preferred touchpoint—whether through LinkedIn message, WhatsApp inquiry, or web chat. They want to receive persistent, knowledgeable responses regardless of the channel. And they value suppliers that offer them seamless handovers between self-service content and human intervention when needed.

For manufacturers, this means breaking out of voice-first support models and moving on to fully integrated omni-channel platforms. To succeed is to meet customers in their chosen channels while preserving context and consistency across touchpoints.

How to Build a Future-Ready Contact Centre

Imagine transforming your contact centre from a cost centre into a strategic growth engine. Effective contact centre transformation is an organised process that unites ambition with pragmatism:

Chart out the entire customer journey. Seeing your processes through the customer’s eyes can reveal hidden opportunities that were previously invisible. See how customers truly interact with your organisation at both sales and service touchpoints. Identify steps where they struggle, which channels they prefer, and where you can improve as an organisation. The analysis should span the whole process, from initial product inquiries all the way through to after-sales service.

Integrate data and systems. Standalone CRM, ERP, and support systems lead to inefficiency and poor experience. Strive for deep integration in order to provide agents with end-to-end customer visibility, enabling them to respond to service problems and discover sales opportunities effectively.

Prioritise high-impact projects. Quick wins build momentum – and momentum drives bigger transformations. Begin with targeted changes that realise significant value immediately. Offering live chat technical support or creating a comprehensive knowledge base can realise early payback while building organisational confidence to change more widely.

Develop digital-first skills. Equipped with the right skills, your team won’t just handle service, they’ll create memorable experiences that keep customers coming back. Omni-channel service requires different skills than traditional phone service: channel fluency, empathy across digital media, and the ability to leverage AI suggestions. Invest in training initiatives that prepare agents to succeed in the new world, and encourage a consultative mindset needed for discovering sales opportunities.

Leverage AI judiciously. The smartest contact centres know how to blend human empathy with AI intelligence, creating a service experience that feels both effortless and personal.  AI complements but never replaces human agents. Apply AI assistants to routine queries, intelligent routing for optimal agent allocation, and predictive analytics to ascertain upsell chances and service needs. All these enable scalable service delivery while maintaining a personal, human touch.

Service Is the New Sales

The transformation of contact centres from discrete service functions to integrated service and sales platforms is a strategic imperative for industrial manufacturers. Those who succeed with this transformation achieve a number of benefits:

• Enhanced customer experience and retention
• Cost reduction through automation and self-service
• New revenue streams from proactive service and sales
• Competitive advantage through enhanced customer experience
• Better insight into the customer to fuel product and service innovation

While B2B expectations keep changing and competition gets fierce, contact centres play an ever more important role in business success. They represent the frontline of customer interaction, the retention defence line, and a growingly significant channel for revenue generation.

The Path Forward

Industrial producers can’t afford anymore to look at contact centres as mere operations. The blending of service and sales, made possible through the availability of omni-channel technologies, opens up possibilities for those who are prepared to invest in change.

IBM iX has expertise in helping industrial businesses along this path, merging extensive sector knowledge with tested skill in contact centre transformation. Our methodology ensures that change brings both short-term operational gains and long-term strategic benefit.

See how leading enterprises redefined service with IBM iX – get in touch to explore your transformation roadmap.

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