In today’s fast-paced business environment, contact centres play a crucial role in providing exceptional customer service. However, managing a contact centre can be a daunting task, especially with the high volume of calls, emails and chats that agents have to handle on a daily basis. This is where automation and AI come in to help contact centre agents overcome some of the most common challenges they face.
Managing high contact volume is a common problem. Using an automated customer journey analysis and orchestration platform allows companies to understand why customers are calling and to improve self service options, either online or via an interactive voice response (IVR) system or chatbot. This technology allows customers to self-serve if possible whilst also providing the options to reach specific departments if still required. This not only reduces the number of calls that agents have to handle but also improves the overall customer experience by pushing details of the customer and their journey so far to the agent on call arrival.
Automation such as real time speech analytics can also greatly improve agent efficiency by providing a call summary at the end of the call that can be preformatted for pasting directly into a CRM reducing the time an agent spends in after call work, freeing up more time to talk to customers and to focus on more complex and critical issues. This can also help to reduce errors and improve data accuracy, which all leads to more efficient and effective service.
In addition to automation, AI is also becoming increasingly important in the contact centre. For example, AI-powered chatbots can assist by handling simple queries and providing customers with quick and accurate responses. AI-powered sentiment analysis can be employed to monitor customer interactions and provide insights into the customer’s needs and emotions. This allows managers to train their agents and make improvements where necessary. Furthermore, AI-powered virtual assistants can provide agents with real-time guidance and support during customer interactions, which helps to improve the overall service quality.
However, while automation and AI can overcome many of the challenges that contact centre agents face, it is important to align them with the overall business strategy. Automation and AI should be used to enhance and support the work of contact centre agents, rather than replacing them. It’s also important to have a clear understanding of where contact exists within the customer journey, which will help to ensure that the automation and AI solutions implemented are the right ones for the business and the customer, resulting in a more efficient and effective contact strategy that drives higher levels of customer experience and therefore loyalty, advocacy and ultimately retention.
If you’re interested in learning more about how automation and AI can help your contact centre, don’t hesitate to reach out to us.