Conversational AI for Contact Center Agility

Contact centers are the focal point of a company’s customer support operations. Their effectiveness in resolving customer queries is vital in ensuring customer retention and loyalty.

Not too long ago, most people contacted customer service using inbound calls. However, contact centers have evolved dramatically over the last two decades. They may still use inbound, outbound and routed telephone services, but contact centers have progressed to also employ email, social media services, SMS and other channels to interact with their customers.

Nevertheless, contact centers are rapidly recognizing that their existence will become obsolete unless they continue to adopt new technologies to stay up to date with what customers want and expect regarding their interactions.

With 87% of organizations agreeing that traditional experiences no longer satisfy customers, there is a need for change. Rather than replacing themselves, contact centers are persistently seeking to bolster their offering as a 21st Century solution.

Digital Transformation in Contact Center

The significance of digital transformation in all industries is nothing new. Many companies are taking measures to orchestrate a digital transformation, with a recent survey of customer experience (CX) professionals stating that more than 80% are in the midst of, or beginning to embark on these changes.

Digital transformation and artificial intelligence are a crucial part of every organization’s modern adaptation to new challenges, goals and demands. This is also applicable to contact centers. But before determining the best way to apply digital innovations to transform the customer experience, it is important to define the modern consumer and provide changes that suit their demands.

Defining the Modern Consumer

With so much competition on show, modern consumers are not afraid to switch brands if their needs are not met. Up to 32% of global consumers would leave a brand after one bad experience. These needs and requirements have also changed over the years, with more emphasis being placed on their experience with the brand rather than just the use of their services.

So, what exactly are the ingredients for proficient customer experience? There is no one-size-fits-all response, but there are common traits that are found in modern consumer expectations and habits.

Customer expectations are higher than ever. Modern consumers are not willing to accept below standard customer service and companies know this. According to Gartner, 81% of marketers expect companies to be competing mostly or entirely based on customer experience. Providing the best experience is as important as a company’s product or service.

Modern consumers are aware of increasing competition and are tech-savvy. There have been significant technological advances that allow them to expect more from their brands. Today’s customers want their brands to revolve around their accessibility and convenience and not the other way around.

The key elements of modern customer expectations are based on personalized, omnichannel and timely customer support. This means that services must be accessible, 24/7, in multiple languages, and across all digital channels.

Consumers are used to accessing what they need on multiple platforms, and they expect each platform to be able to provide what they need in similar ways. This means that contact centers mustn’t be siloed, multichannel platforms, but an omnichannel hub that provides a full customer journey.

Additionally, as customers want their questions answered quickly, there is an increasing preference to use customer self—service as a first step, but this does not exclude the importance of contact centers but instead is an element that should be integrated and set as a performance priority in modern contact centers to provide higher quality assistance.

Customers want personalized services that are timely, accessible and faultless, as well as transparent, committed and proactive. Providing support that meets all these characteristics to high volumes of consumers may seem inconceivable, but this is one of the main reasons to advocate for the importance of digital transformation in contact centers.

AI and Chatbots are integral in the future of contact centers

When people talk about digital transformation, an integral part of this is Artificial Intelligence (AI). With 83% of businesses saying that AI is a strategic priority for them, contact centers must benefit from these technological advances as they are a direct link between a company and its customers, and can use AI to get to know their customers on a deeper level.

Investments in AI and chatbots are not done in the detriment of human agents. Skilled agents are, and will be, major elements of a high-quality customer center. The immersion of technology in these services is too often seen as a threat, but the truth is that agents and technology need to work in sync to provide the best customer experience that will give their business a competitive advantage.

In that sense, a key purpose of AI in call centers is to streamline processes for customers and human agents. Automating processes makes managing mass volumes of calls easier, but some of these processes, like conventional Interactive Voice Response (IVR), can be restrictive, lacking back-and-forth conversations, and always function with a view to routing calls through a queue and to wait for an agent, who may then frustratingly request the same information the customer has already provided.

This is why chatbots and conversational AI platforms provide ideal solutions to contact centers. Chatbots and conversational AI platforms are efficient in resolving large volumes of queries and FAQs 24/7 and in multiple languages, in turn allowing human agents to solve more comprehensive and complex inquiries, but they are also much more than that.

Chatbots can be resourceful solutions that help businesses map customer journeys and help them predict future behaviors with analytical data to back it up. The ability to use behavioral trends in customer data will enable call center managers to better understand what clients want and to strategize best practices and courses of action based on their needs.

In the same way that call centers have evolved, so too have the capacities of modern chatbots and conversational AI platforms. Along with solving problems consistently, chatbots collect valuable customer feedback and build customer engagement with personalized responses and interactive conversations while respecting their privacy.

Advanced conversational features on chatbots are a major asset. While first-gen chatbots were renown for being lineal in their conversations and often not understanding what customers were telling them, advanced platforms like Teneo deliver a more intelligent interaction by understanding complex, multi-intentional sentences, being contextually aware, filling out forms, suggesting self-service links, task-switching and requesting information that can then be recalled during the conversation or handed to human agents if the issue is routed to an expert.

Conversational AI provides tailored information that improves the customer experience and boosts brand loyalty, but it also helps contact center agents. By making the best use of conversational AI data, agents can access information that makes their job easier and ensures faster query resolution and shorter waiting times. Importantly, conversational AI platforms are scalable and designed to adapt and easily integrate to each business’ needs.

Chatbot technology also meets customer demands for assistance via multiple channels. The best conversational platforms include connectors to allow the use of different channels so that customers can access contact centers in a way that is most comfortable for them.

IVR and voice channels are still prominent in contact centers, and voice messaging isn’t a trend that is going to go away. According to Capgemini, 37% of customers prefer voice assistants because it is a natural way to interact. Conversational AI can also be applied for better IVR interactions. Conversational AI can use intent and context awareness and sentiment analysis through Natural Language Understanding (NLU) to understand what a customer wants and know when and to who to relay a call when it needs to be transferred to a skilled agent fit for that specific case.

The ability to route calls intelligently will reduce frustration and increase productivity, with human agents having the tools and insights to assist in providing personalized feedback to customers who haven’t already had their queries solved.

All this assistance to human agents can be applied to omnichannel platforms so that customers can escalate chats to IVR channels or calls effortlessly and talk to agents who have all the context at hand to resolve the query.

Strong platforms leverage existing investments with the right technology, scalability and integrations to ensure ease of deployment. That way contact centers can begin to benefit from conversational AI without getting lost in complex deployments, and focus on what is most important, providing the best customer experience and assistance to their staff.

Conversational AI exceeds expectations instead of just meeting them

AI and conversational platforms are here to stay. Their role, however, goes beyond providing relief to contact centers allowing them to not only meet expectations but to exceed these expectations by providing the building blocks to an intelligent, proactive and efficient service. The result will be a market-leading customer experience that allows contact center staff to enhance their expertise and raining by reducing their workload and providing quality insights.

Modern contact centers are starting to use artificial intelligence, but in order to reap results like reducing repeat calls and waiting times by up to 65%, this AI, like Teneo, will need to be conversational, scalable and seamless, so that a company’s contact center is not just useful, but is an asset.

If you would like to know more about how Conversational AI can help businesses provide exceptional contact center experiences to customers and stay at the forefront of their markets join us in our next webinar with CSG on Conversational AI for Contact Center Agility in our webinar on May 12, 2020, at 17:00 (GMT +2) with our participants:

• Ann Knox, Strategic Partnerships at Artificial Solutions
• Peter Joles, Presales at Artificial Solutions
• Amy Allen, Digital Transformation and Product Management at CSG