How can Voice AI assist Contact Centers in becoming Recession Ready?
The U.S. economy has been contracting, and many experts have noted that since it has already shrunk for two consecutive quarters, technically we have already entered a recession. Most economic sectors have been plagued by recession worries during the past few months.
Despite the fact that the economy is slowing, inflation is high, and the Federal Reserve has been raising interest rates, the data indicates that we find ourselves in a more complicated and nuanced scenario.
How Does a Recession Affect Contact Center Operations and Customer Service in Particular?
It is difficult to predict how a potential recession will look, but the best thing businesses at present can do is prepare and future-proof their organization across all departments, optimizing workflows and cutting costs wherever possible.
-A recession may exert the following threats to your #contactcenter:
If the overall business's profits have dropped, management may decide to cut costs across departments, lay off employees, reduce and justify information and tech-based investments, and pursue a different strategy.
While your funds may be reduced, inbound calls and customer inquiries may increase, overburdening the human agents with work.
As your resources become more limited, you will be unable to provide the same level of customer service and query resolution, resulting in the loss of customers and, as a result, some significant opportunities.
As consumer spending slows and pressure mounts to keep existing customers from competitors, customer loyalty will be the biggest threat to contact centers.
How Contact Centers can prepare for a recession:
The contact center landscape has evolved significantly over the years, with AI and #automation at the forefront, and it can prepare for the recession by-
领英推荐
The first step in making your business recession-proof is to optimize all of your internal processes and workflows. Analyze and try to solve the existing processes and pain points in the customer journey.
Surprisingly, research shows that the quality of a company's #customerexperience is a major factor in determining how well an organization can survive a recession.
Customers expect assistance and care to be delivered seamlessly and across a network of touchpoints, devices, and apps. Each business must concentrate on the best channels and apps for its unique customers, products, and services. Whatever strategy you choose conversational AI will improve your customer experience.
As query volume becomes more variable, contact centers may see more fluctuations in inbound call volume, requiring more or fewer resources depending on the time. Agencies should develop a robust plan to address these scenarios; plan ahead of time to reduce the burden of live agents.
Agent attrition in contact centers tends to be high, therefore preparing for it becomes mandatory. According to current data, contact centers have a 35-40% attrition rate. This trend incurs additional costs because the company must cover recruiting, hiring, and training costs each time an agent leaves their position.
Self-service customer service allows users to view, modify, and request a refund, make payments, enquire, make a reservation, request technical support, and solve common issues without involving a human agent; this can be done through the company's website, a mobile app, or an AI-powered #voiceassistant.
How Voice AI can be utilized by Contact Centers to Prepare for a Recession?
Implementing technological solutions that can assist you in automating processes and improving customer and employee experiences is one of the best ways to future-proof your business, particularly as we prepare for a possible recession. Voice AI is an excellent customer service solution to consider.
Voice AI is the use of AI-powered Digital Voice Agents to handle all inbound and some outbound calls; it is becoming increasingly popular among businesses because of the competitive advantage it provides, and among customers because of the compelling customer experience it provides.
The Digital Voice Agent can assist customers with common questions and can redirect more complex questions to your human agents. When you enable a perfect synergy between human and digital agents, you are effectively using Augmented Voice Intelligence.
To learn more about how to future-proof your contact center operations, schedule a call with one of our experts today.