Every business tries to figure out how to do more with less, and artificial intelligence is providing new ways to make that happen. However, it can be challenging to know where to start with such tools as contact center AI.
In a recent poll, 48% of small businesses reported that primary barriers to implementing AI include not knowing what tools to use. In addition, 46% say that employees’ lack of digital skills is an impediment.
Therefore, if you want to succeed with contact center AI, you have to start by educating yourself. Learn exactly what contact center AI is and why your team needs it.
Key Takeaways:
- Contact center AI offers tools that automate simple contact center functions, allowing agents and supervisors to focus on high-value work.
- AI also provides advanced insights that your team can use for better decision-making and personalized responses to customers.
- Using AI tools well leads to greater employee engagement and satisfied customers.
What Is Contact Center AI?
Contact center AI refers to a range of tools that help you either automate or enhance key contact center operations. This software typically handles assignments that used to require a human.
In many cases, you’ll find that AI doesn’t fully take over for human workers. Instead, it provides additional insights as an automated assistant or streamlines mundane work. Otherwise, it covers basic tasks that do not need the creativity, sensitivity, or high-level judgment of a human.
What Are the Benefits of Adopting Contact Center AI?
Contact center AI has the power to help your support team perform at its peak. Consider the top advantages of this tool.
Greater Operational Efficiency and Team Productivity
AI offers self-service that lets customers manage account features on their own. It can provide basic answers to questions, leaving agents to more pressing concerns.
Also, agents have less secretarial work after customer calls because AI provides transcriptions and summaries of the interaction. The system automatically records key details into your contact center software and even updates the data in productivity apps, including:
- Customer relationship management
- Enterprise resource planning
- Inventory management
- Electronic health records
AI also gets customers to the right agent the first time. Intelligent call routing determines the reason for calls and any important details about callers. Then, it forwards them to suitable agents for faster resolutions.
Additional Cost Savings
Using a cloud contact center already delivers cost savings over an on-premise system. Contact center AI allows your operations to become even more cost-efficient.
For example, you won’t have agents sitting idle because you won’t need to hire as many for less consequential matters. Plus, supervisors save time on processing analytics and can make better decisions faster.
More Personalized Customer Service
Personalization is often the deciding factor for customers who are deciding between brands. Unfortunately, it doesn’t take more than one bad experience for once-loyal clients to turn elsewhere.
Contact center AI provides personalized service as it can reference customer data during virtual agent interactions. Furthermore, it shares that information with human agents when they need to take over.
Consequently, customers will view interactions with your team as one seamless conversation. They won’t be constantly repeating what happened on previous calls because those details will be accessible to your whole team.
Advanced Insights Into Your Contact Center
You can only get better if you know what to tweak. In the past, that meant supervisors had to pull a sample of interactions to read or listen to. No matter how thorough the process, it could never truly give you the whole picture.
Contact center AI takes team analytics to the ultimate level. The software can examine, record, transcribe, and summarize all interactions. After that, it provides insights in a user-friendly dashboard or customized reports that offer the data that’s most important to you.
An Expanded Online Knowledge Base
A call or interaction that solves a unique issue shouldn’t benefit just one customer or agent. An odd challenge a customer is facing could be something that many others are experiencing and not just a one-off situation.
For example, what if a support agent finds out that the problem a customer is having with your product is due to interference from a new feature on another popular app? After discovering the root cause of this issue, you realize you should outline what to do in an article in your online help center. Your contact center AI makes creating and fact-checking the post much easier.
First, it has logged and can reference all of the details from the initial customer interaction. Then, generative AI can quickly create an article from that information for a step-by-step solution. All that’s left is for a subject matter expert to review the information and post it.
Higher Customer Satisfaction
Quick and personalized service delivers the whole reason you have a contact center in the first place: greater customer satisfaction. With AI software, customers aren’t endlessly waiting on hold to get to the right agent, making them much happier with your brand.
Personalized attention also makes the caller feel like they’re picking up where they left off, providing a sense of continuity. This makes them feel like you’re really paying attention to them and care about them and their issues.
Elevate Your Customer Service With Intermedia’s Contact Center AI
Excellent contact center AI can only function well within a robust platform. Make sure your contact center is on a solid foundation with Intermedia’s cloud contact center software. Reach out today to learn more.
Rob Oscanyan
Robert Oscanyan is a Senior Director of Product Marketing at Intermedia, where he focuses on helping businesses improve their customer experience using Intermedia's award-winning cloud communications solutions. Rob has over a decade of experience spanning market research, messaging, and elevating the voice of the customer. In his free time, he constantly creating new adventures with his wife, seven kids, and a small army of pets.
August 9, 2024
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