How AI is transforming the contact center
Contact centers, especially in larger organizations, are at the heart of customer service delivery, and high staff turnover has long been a major contributing factor to inadequate provision.
If forecasts are to be believed, around 50% of contact center employees plan to leave the profession within the next two to three years. This creates a challenge for CS directors to find new ways to transform the contact center experience for both staff and customers.
Reputedly dismal places to work, contact centers are responsible for poor working conditions, stressful, demanding, and mundane work, with long hours, low pay, and little career advancement. As a profession, customer service struggles to hire and retain the best people, making delivering a great customer experience a challenge.
Yet, things are changing. AI is tipped to help bring about the transformation that contact centers have been waiting for – and importantly make them a nice place to work. Here’s how.
- AI can improve real time assistance to agents
AI powered chatbots and personal assistants can provide fast and accurate responses to customer inquiries reducing wait and resolution times and helping agents better handle customer enquiries. Better outcomes for customers reduces agent stress and helps to improve overall job satisfaction.
- AI can stamp out the mundane
Automation of repetitive tasks such as data entry and call routing allows human agents to focus on more complex and interesting tasks which provides greater personalization of service to the customer. This frees up time for the agents and allows them to be more creative in their role.
- AI enhances productivity
Automation of routine tasks and delivery of information and insights that help agents handle inquiries faster, more efficiently and cost effectively mean that resolution times are improved and productivity is enhanced. This reduces the stress on agents, and makes contact centers a better workplace.
- AI can reduce errors
With increased automation, comes a reduction of errors. More accurate and relevant information provides agents with the ability to better serve customers and to understand their needs and preferences more fully.
- Autonomy for staff
Contact center staff often follow scripts and procedures which limits their autonomy and their creativity in handling customer inquiries or complaints, leading to dissatisfaction in their role. As AI gathers pace, managed by humans, chatbots will provide a way to free-up customer service agents from the limitations of their roles and provide increased autonomy and job satisfaction.
- AI empowers customer service agents
Far from removing agents from the interface with the customer, it empowers them to do a better and more effective job. A happy customer means a happy agent who can focus on providing a high-quality service.
- AI delivers contact centre transformation
Real-time insights and assistance help agents provide a more personalized customer service experience and means they are able to effectively service the customer, whilst also enjoying their role. AI delivers a total transformation of roles and shifts the balance of power to the agent to deliver the best service, whilst enjoying their role and planning a future in the profession.
AI has the potential to enhance the role of humans in the contact center by providing them with the tools, insights and the ability to deliver a better overall service to customers.
By automating routine tasks, and providing real-time assistance, AI will help agents to be more productive, creative and effective when dealing with customers, and provide a dual role – boosting the motivation and prospects of contact center agents, and providing a great customer experience.
If you'd like to understand how conversational AI helps build chatbots that have human-like demeanour, please contact our client services team , take a look at some of industry recognised conversation design training courses, or discover more through our enterprise solutions section of the website.
