Contact centers still play a critical role in the customer service chain. A recent Convin survey suggested that 71% of customers still prefer personalized interactions and negative experiences can have far reaching impacts to the brand and revenue. Unfortunately, contact centers face common problems and challenges that can affect operations and ultimately, the customer experience. Increasing competition and rising consumer expectations means contact centers must execute positively with every customer interaction. The industry is quick to adopt technologies that can drive performance but recent innovations in artificial intelligence and machine learning can provide contact centers with cutting edge tools to combat challenges head on and maximize each customer engagement to their fullest potential. While many have labelled AI technologies as a ‘human replacement’, the infrastructure is best applied as an assistive technology that interacts with humans on both sides of the phone call.

The Human Challenges of Contact Centers

Contact centers suffer through some of the worst turnover rates across all industries with some research suggesting between 40% and 60% entry level employees leaving within a short term. For customer facing businesses, this poses monumental problems by creating gaps in service resulting in negative customer experiences and longer wait times. A well defined Generative AI based technology can provide essential frontline services that ensure customers that dial in are engaged as quickly as possible. Customers can easily navigate level 1 type requests using plain language and can perform tasks within the system. Frontline technology can queue up calls more efficiently by collecting relevant data that live agents need to resolve the customer’s concern. High attrition is an ongoing problem in the call center industry but adopting engaging and interactive frontline technologies can ease the burden of service gaps created by employee turnover.

Higher Expectations and Greater Impact

Consumer expectations for goods and services are at an all time high and customers themselves are highly empowered in the digital age. Interactions and engagements that do not meet expectations can negatively affect brand reputation and can result in lost loyalty and future revenue potential. Preferences for personalized interactions put focus on that important initial interaction which can easily set the call up for success or failure. Speed of service and quick resolutions are important factors for consumers and using AI based technology can provide an effective first layer of customer service that highly engages the customer and can solve level 1 type concerns quickly. The latest AI tech can quickly learn business processes and can be easily integrated into current customer management systems and infrastructure for fast and seamless data acquisition and operation. Frontline technologies can solve simple customer concerns that do not require a live agent, delivering the fastest solution and experience.

AI Drives Performance from the Back End

Contact center performance is driven by the individual and managing the agent’s ability and call quality is an essential function of the contact center’s leadership. One of the more critical challenges is monitoring performance and quality on a consistent basis and then correcting or adjusting the agent’s processes if needed. AI based technology can assist contact center managers with call quality monitoring and agent performance. Machine learning infrastructure can ‘learn’ what quality calls are and quickly identify vocabulary and tone in live calls as well as business specific tasks and processes within that particular call. AI based technology can analyze calls quickly and deliver detailed reporting that identifies call process and development opportunities to keep service levels and KPIs on target. AI solutions can also handle live agent scheduling by processing call traffic data and positioning representatives where they are needed the most. Contact centers rely on high performance and productivity to maintain standards and AI technology can provide valuable tools and consoles that manage center output and efficiency and provide strategies that can positively impact all KPIs.

The Bottom Line

The contact center industry relies on technology and is quick to adopt innovations that can create efficiencies and drive performance. AI technology can play an assistive role in contact center operations and help units overcome the typical challenges faced by the business. AI’s high level of human interaction can provide efficient and quality level 1 engagement, consistently maintaining the availability of service when customers dial in. The technology’s ability to learn and process vast amounts of data can also create benefits on the operational side by analyzing and managing call quality as well as strategizing agent scheduling and development. Brands depend on contact centers for sales and support of products and services and with more customers preferring personalized interactions, adopting AI tech for assistive roles in the contact center can help drive those crucial customer experiences and increase productivity and efficiency in the face of shrinking resources and higher consumer expectations.