From Support Channel to Strategic Engine: Why the Contact Center Is Every Brand’s Untapped Goldmine

CX leaders are reimagining the contact center as a strategic engine for experience transformation, not just a reactive support channel. Learn how tapping into omnichannel insights from every customer interaction can drive loyalty, uncover opportunities, and power smarter business decisions.

In today’s customer experience landscape, customers and employees expect more, and organizations are rethinking their priorities. In order for brands to continue elevating experiences, CX can no longer be treated as a siloed function — it’s becoming a mission-critical strategy for driving loyalty, growth, and competitive advantage across the entirety of the business.

And one of the most valuable, yet underutilized, assets in that strategy? The contact center.

That shift was front and center in a recent conversation between Jodi Searl, Chief Experience Officer at Medallia, and Swetha Kumar, Managing Director at KPMG Customer Advisory. As they explored what’s next for brands aiming to show up meaningfully for customers, they both agreed: “There’s one place that gets a lot of attention — and that’s really the goldmine of data that lives in the contact center,” as Searl explained.

The Contact Center as a Goldmine for Experience Intelligence

For many enterprises, the contact center is where experience transformation begins. As Kumar noted, “That’s often where our clients begin. There is just a ton of volume coming through the contact center.”

But volume isn’t the only factor. The complexity of today’s customer journeys reveals just how critical this channel has become. Roughly 40% of consumers use three or more conversation channels — such as phone, chat, and email — to resolve issues. And yet, more than half (53%) report that support interactions feel fragmented, requiring them to interact with agents over multiple channels or calls. (Source: KPMG report, Towards the Contact Centre of the Future)

Every one of these interactions is rich with insights — not just into what went wrong, but into how customers think, feel, and decide.

But many organizations still take a fragmented approach — capturing customer feedback in silos and missing opportunities to connect insights across channels such as chat, digital, and transactional systems. KPMG often sees that customer service data is particularly underutilized. Frequently isolated from operational, digital, and product data, it can fall short of delivering the enterprise-wide value it’s capable of driving.

Contact centers often focus on resolving individual issues quickly, but miss the bigger opportunity: using every interaction as a window into how customers are feeling, what’s working in their experience, and where friction still exists. When this data is connected and contextualized, it can inform strategic improvements across the business — not just within service operations.

From Feedback to Action: A New Model for Experience Transformation

As Searl and Kumar highlighted, the key isn’t just listening — it’s building a seamless experience intelligence loop that helps brands listen, connect, and act at scale. The contact center plays a pivotal role in that loop. It offers a real-time window into:

• What customers are saying (and how they’re feeling)
• Where journeys are breaking down
• Which interventions actually drive resolution and loyalty

Instead of reacting in isolation, leading organizations are adopting new models that capture and connect signals across all interactions — surfacing unmet needs (even among customers who never voice them), revealing operational inefficiencies, and uncovering new avenues for growth.

Digital leaders are prioritizing omnichannel insights, with 21.5% citing that their #1 goal is creating a cohesive customer journey across all channels and devices.

The result of an omnichannel listening strategy? A smarter experience for the business, a more seamless journey for the customer, and a more empowered workforce at the center. That’s where real transformation begins.

To harness that intelligence, leading organizations are pairing AI-powered signal capture from platforms like Medallia with the operational and industry insight of global consultancies like KPMG. 

Medallia’s AI-powered conversational intelligence analyzes every interaction in real time, uncovering emerging trends, identifying friction points, and spotting compliance risks before they escalate. By connecting insights across channels, Medallia maximizes agent productivity and performance, reduces unnecessary calls, and creates revenue-generating moments through increased customer engagement. 

And the results speak for themselves. According to a recently commissioned Forrester Total Economic Impact™ study, conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Medallia, organizations using Medallia were able to reduce callback rates by 5% to 7%, avoiding 1.2 million contacts and saving $2.4 million through continuous digital improvements and more effective issue resolution.

Further emphasizing the power of an omnichannel listening strategy, KPMG US Customer Service Leader David Klimek explained, “Harnessing insights from the contact center doesn’t just refine customer service — it reinvents products, shapes digital experiences, and guides AI innovations.”

KPMG often finds that companies who connect and leverage insights from their contact center, digital channels, and in-person facilities — such as analyzing voice recordings, product usage data, call and digital volumes, and churn rates — can identify essential customer needs and preferences. These insights can enable them to strategically revamp their product and feature roadmaps, refine customer service operations, and enhance retention rates and attract new customers. Integrating this type of customer-centric intelligence into design and development processes can spark substantial growth and turn everyday interactions into powerful strategic advantages.

The Opportunity Ahead

For CX leaders, the message is clear: the contact center isn’t just where complaints get handled — it’s where customer trust is earned, loyalty is built, and transformation begins.

But doing so requires a mindset shift. Brands must:

• Treat the contact center as a strategic listening post, not a reactive support channel
• Build connected systems that break down data silos and enable action
• Empower frontline teams with the context and tools they need to deliver consistently great experiences

As Medallia and KPMG are seeing firsthand, when organizations reimagine the contact center as a source of intelligence — not just a channel for support — they unlock the full value of every interaction.

The contact center is no longer just answering calls — it’s calling for change. Are you ready to answer?

Watch the rest of the conversation on strategies for impactful experiences on EXP Now. 

P.S. Will you be in Las Vegas at CCW? Medallia will be at booth #632. Make sure to stop by and say hi!