Posted by on August, 22 2019 7:29 pm
Artificial intelligence may sound like something out of a science fiction movie, but it is actually a commonly-used tool in today’s contact center. However, call center AI is different than what you might expect when you hear the term.
Here, we’ll give you an in-depth look at what call center AI entails and what applications you could be using it for. Don’t miss out on the many uses for this technology - read on to learn more!
One common misconception about call center AI is that it is customer-facing. It is very unlikely that this will be the case any time soon. While it might be an interesting and attractive concept to have a fully-featured virtual assistant that can handle the job of an agent and take customer requests, answer questions, and address concerns, artificial intelligence simply isn’t sophisticated enough for this to happen soon.
Rather, AI in the call center works as a strong and silent partner for your staff behind the scenes. Most of the time, your consumers won’t even know it is there. That doesn’t mean it isn’t pulling its weight, though. There are many applications for it in your facility, each of which can lessen the load on your agents’ shoulders and make serving your consumers easier than ever.
Most contact centers make use of some kind of automated menu for callers. This may be the traditional, “Press one for English” style of menu or one that involves more intricate or detailed commands. Regardless, there are many ways that call center AI can be used to enhance the use of these menus.
Perhaps the most interesting for many consumers is that AI can be used to create menus that allow for natural speech patterns when interacting with the prompts. This gives consumers the feeling of interacting with a real human being without the commitment of having to do so. It’s the perfect compromise for those who need specific solutions to problems - but who would rather keep their service as close to fully-automated as possible.
What your consumers do while visiting your website or calling your contact center is important. Their behavior doesn’t just help you better understand their individual needs, but also what the average consumer might need from your agents in the future.
Artificial intelligence can quickly capture and catalog what your consumers are doing when they interact with your business - faster than a human agent possibly could. What’s more, the more is observed, the more the applications learn. This means that in a short time, they become able to reasonably predict consumer behavior - and use those predictions to assist agents with providing great customer service.
Navigating your website can be difficult for some consumers - especially if they have limited internet experience. To keep customer satisfaction high, artificial intelligence applications can be used to help consumers navigate your site or application more easily. AI also becomes more accurate the more often and longer it is used, so it will only be more helpful the longer it is available to your consumers.
Big data is aptly named. There is so much information about each of your consumers that they provide when making purchases or otherwise interacting with your company. Cataloging that information and keeping it safe for later use is all part of the responsible big data management. Unfortunately, this is a big task - and it is often mishandled.
Robotic process automation - a type of artificial intelligence often used in contact centers - reduces the frustrating need to repeat oneself that often leads consumers to disconnect calls or express dissatisfaction with their service. Their information is provided automatically to agents who need it and can be transferred, inputted, analyzed, and more - all with a few simple clicks.
One of the most common applications for artificial intelligence in the contact center setting is routing. In particular, skills-based routing and forecasting will eventually come to be human-free tasks, left entirely to machines and software to handle. This will not only help in the present by making routing to the best-qualified agents faster and simpler, but it will also make the future of these applications better since AI learns as it runs.
Today’s consumers love self-service options. While some still insist on always speaking to a liver agent regardless of when or why they are calling, many consumers -especially millennial or Generation Z consumers prefer to be able to serve themselves. Through call center AI, your facility can offer a more extensive list of options for self-service and keep these consumers happy.
Even if you are managing an inbound call center, making connections with consumers is still important. You will likely have follow-up evaluations to conduct or other types of communication that can really create a drain on all center agent work hours after a while. Thankfully, artificial intelligence can help you with this.
By automating the outreach process and making those connections for you, it can greatly reduce the time you have to invest in this important aspect of running your business. What’s more, you still get the benefit of consumers feeling valued due to your taking the time to follow up with them; they never have to know that those follow-ups were automatically generated!
Ready to put call center AI to work for your facility? Contact the industry leaders at ChaseData. We have the best technology in the field to help you create an easier workday for your call center agents and a better customer experience for every consumer that calls your center. There’s no need to wonder what more you could be doing with call center AI; give us a call today to learn more and find out for yourself!