AI is having an impact on customer service call centers by automating repetitive tasks and improving customer experiences. Automation can help route calls to the appropriate human agents and provide suggestions to agents to quickly resolve issues. While AI cannot replace humans for complex queries, augmented workforces that combine AI and human agents can enhance agents' abilities. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the use of AI in call centers to differentiate customer service when disruptions occur.

1. AI In The Cloud Contact Centre

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AI is impacting every area of service delivery, and customer service is no exception. Call
centre work is sometimes repetitive, but there’s often no one-size-fits-all template for
responding to customer queries and complaints. This means it can be a perfect use case
for machine learning and automation. However, it’s vital that the use of AI and
automation is done in a way that doesn’t deprive your customers of human contact at the
time they need it most!
Customers calling into call centres have high expectations of the experience they will
receive, and a low threshold for disappointment. For example, in the telco sector,
research shows that 70% of customers place experience among the three most important
factors when making buying decisions. In fact, 43% say that one poor customer
relationship experience is enough to make them cut ties with a brand.

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Automation can certainly help companies reduce cost when it comes to dealing
with customer enquiries. But is that really helpful, if it’s also going to drive away
customers? Today, though, thanks to advances in AI, companies are finding
ways to automate call centre processes that not only avoid a negative customer
experience, but also deliver an improved experience.
This is a huge driver behind the adoption of AI in call centres right now, in a
world where enterprises in general are moving away from the idea that
advanced technology exists merely to reduce costs, but instead is a driver of
growth and new business opportunities.

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Even with advanced natural language based processing (NLP) systems, call
centres will, for some time yet, have to deal with questions that are too
sophisticated for automated information systems. But NLP systems can
certainly help direct callers to the right human that can answer the question.
Everyone who has contacted a contact centre will know that it can be infuriating
to get put through to the wrong person, and then have to re-join a queue to be
put through to someone else. If automated routing systems can reduce the
instance of this happening by more accurately predicting the reason for a
person’s call, they can certainly improve customer experience.
Call Routing

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Early attempts at automating call routing often provided a poor experience, forcing humans to
wait through lengthy menus before choosing the option they wanted, or offering poorly
implemented, non-AI voice recognition. NLP can help companies tackle this problem today
with voice recognition that is accurate and gets better as it learns from interacting with more
and more customers. It can even predict which callers are best suited to which agents, based
on personality traits or the agents’ success at solving similar problems in the past.
Jonathan Rosenberg, CTO and head of AI at intelligent cloud contact centre provider Five9, told
me, “AI has immense business value in the contact centre, an area where every minute matters
– for the customer, for service agents, and for the organization. It is also an area that is
dominated by people doing very repetitive tasks, and the combination of those two factors is a
recipe for AI-powered transformation.”
AI also augments the abilities of human call handlers to provide guidance for questions they
face on the fly.
Call Routing

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There’s a lot of talk about whether widespread automation will lead to large-scale human
redundancy and unemployment. But today, at least, the focus within forward-thinking
organisations is very much on using automation to enhance employees’ abilities to do
their jobs, rather than replacing them.
Genefa Murphy, chief marketing officer at Five9, says, “Organizations are increasingly
seeing the potential of AI and automation to work alongside their contact centre agents,
rather than as a means of replacing them to cut costs.
“It has become clear that the future of customer care is an “and,” not an “or,” strategy and
will be powered by human agents and a digital workforce. With a digital workforce, AI is
persistent. It’s used before, during, and after the customer interaction.”
Augmented Workforces

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In this respect, AI can act as a second pair of ears for the customer service agent –
listening in on the communication and automatically suggesting solutions to the
agent as to how the customer’s issue might best be resolved. When this is done in
a way that reduces the need for the caller to wait while the agent manually consults
a database of potential remedies to find the correct solution, this can also improve
customer experience.
Rosenberg tells me, “These things have demonstrable ROI. If you can demonstrate
that an AI solution can save 20 seconds out of every call for an agent, or allow
customers to get self-service, you have a strong business case for investment. This is
why AI transformation will happen first in the contact centre for many
organisations.”
Augmented Workforces

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As with many things, the global COVID-19 pandemic has been an accelerator of innovation in
the field of AI customer experience. Even today – a year and a half since the start of the
outbreak – we often hear that we might experience a disruption to our service due to the
various knock-on effects, such as staff illness or disruption to logistics networks. The UK
Institute of Customer Service recently found that customers are getting “fed up with companies
using COVID as an excuse for bad service.”Smarter companies had already recognised this, and
had taken the opportunity to use technology and AI to differentiate themselves from those
who have been slow to adapt.
This improved experience doesn’t have to be limited to just voice calls, of course. Many people
prefer to make their first approach when looking for help via writing, and sentiment analysis
can be used to parse email queries or chatbot interactions to ensure they end up in the right
place. And automated transcription of voice calls into text can allow supervisors to speed up
the monitoring of training calls and more quickly identify potential service issues.
Accelerated Innovation

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For most companies, choosing the right combination of these services is likely
to provide the fastest route to ROI. As Murphy tells me, “The right mix of digital
and live support powered by automation and AI will create a better experience
for everyone, enabling businesses to increase customer loyalty, prevent agent
burnout, and help manage costs and increase revenue.”
The Five9 2021 CX Summit, covering all aspects of automation in customer
experience, takes place on September 1 and 2, 2021. You can register here for
the virtual event. Keynote speakers include Five9 CEO Rowan Trollope and
former NASA astronaut, Columbia University professor, and television actor
Mike Massimino.
Accelerated Innovation

10. Bernard Marr is an internationally best-selling author, popular keynote speaker, futurist, and a
strategic business & technology advisor to governments and companies. He helps
organisations improve their business performance, use data more intelligently, and
understand the implications of new technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data,
blockchains, and the Internet of Things.
LinkedIn has ranked Bernard as one of the world’s top 5 business influencers. He is a frequent
contributor to the World Economic Forum and writes a regular column for Forbes. Every day
Bernard actively engages his 1.5 million social media followers and shares content that
reaches millions of readers.
Visit The
Website
© 2020 Bernard Marr , Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
© 2017 Bernard Marr , Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
© 2020 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
Bernard Marr is an internationally best-selling author, popular keynote speaker, futurist, and a
strategic business & technology advisor to governments and companies. He helps
organisations improve their business performance, use data more intelligently, and
understand the implications of new technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data,
blockchains, and the Internet of Things.
LinkedIn has ranked Bernard as one of the world’s top 5 business influencers. He is a frequent
contributor to the World Economic Forum and writes a regular column for Forbes. Every day
Bernard actively engages his 1.5 million social media followers and shares content that
reaches millions of readers.
Visit The
Website

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