How Artificial Intelligence Improves Contact Center Industry

October 23, 2017 Matt Rocco

Artificial intelligence, or AI, is the gold standard in call center quality monitoring, and for good reason. Today’s automated call center quality monitoring software is so seamless in its integration that efficiencies resulting from its use can be pressed into action quickly, fairly and effectively.

Active call centers record billions of hours of customer interactions every year, and it is spectacular to consider reviewing every minute for quality assessment. AI brings the task not only into the realm of reality, but also into position as a transformational tool in improving operations, agent performance and customer satisfaction. The call centers need to understand the basic before implementing Artificial Intelligence. Let’s take a look at the benefits of working with Artificial Intelligence and the multiple advantages it brings to any operation in the call center that strives to offer the best quality assurance at every point in the customer-interaction process.

AI Interaction in the Customer Service Experience

One of the best aspects of AI is that it is fully customizable to call center’s needs. Not only does the software “learns” and improves over time, but as in-house processes evolves, AI can be adjusted to augment the quality monitoring standards quickly and effectively. That said, it is vital that each company assess its needs and desires before investing in AI so that it achieves the most efficient fit.

Here are some of the aspects to be considered when weighing whether to take the leap into AI quality assurance software:

• The people factor: No computer can show human emotion, which is conceived as the major downside of AI when used in a call center. Companies don’t want their customers to feel as if they are not being heard, especially when they are frustrated or upset, because an automated system cannot properly assess and respond to human emotion. However, AI benefits the call center agents to understand the upset points where the customers want special attention.

This can help the call center agents to include sympathetic words to solve the issue which the customer is facing. In addition, AI benefits the call center employees to handle some of the upset callers when a problem gets too emotional.

“AI Technology Combined With Conventional People Skills Can Deliver A Seamless Customer Experience By Balance Customer Interactions With Empathy”

• Departmental universality: Customer service is a chief concern in every aspect of working with patrons. AI can be programmed to anticipate people needs in the case of an emergency and begin the process before the person can even sort out how to respond. Plus, AI can inform customers of possible solutions and products immediately, which demonstrate a level of urgency and personalization that will help retain customers with monthly subscriptions.
• Resolution-based self-service: Self-service is a tricky tool, and it doesn’t take much for callers to get frustrated with a dizzying path they don’t feel is solving their problem. But from a company’s standpoint, automated self-service is a vital tool for maximizing work done by people. When AI enters the picture, customers—especially high-value clients—can get personalized responses with language that doesn’t sound “canned” or rote.

In addition, AI software is able to decide when a caller requires a personal touch, at which point it connects the caller to a live agent. AI can also read triggers that indicate a customer is a high-value client and make sure that caller is treated accordingly. All of these measures help ensure a positive customer service experience.

Benefits of Automated Call Center Quality Monitoring

With these customer service efficiencies in mind, the next step in the Artificial Intelligence assessment process is to consider the benefits of integrating the software into call center quality monitoring. Of course, the most obvious benefit is efficiency. Each call center generates hundreds of thousands of recorded interactions each year. The only way to effectively evaluate all those calls is with software.

Here are some of the upsides to AI in quality assurance:

• Objectivity: When people are the ones doing the QA assessments, there will always be a risk that interactions are not being evaluated objectively. Using AI, there can be no bias based on a preference for certain agents or a dislike for others. Objectivity is built into the assessment software.
• Universality: Rather than selecting a small fraction of calls for evaluation by people quality monitoring agent, AI allows every single call to be monitored in a quick and efficient manner. Every agent’s interactions can be evaluated, which means the leaders get a full picture of agents’ work and are prepared.
• Immediacy: Because all calls are screened quickly, trends–both negative and positive–can be discovered quickly and adjustments can be made in an efficient manner. There is no rush in the leader’s ability to implement a correction or new innovation that helps boost customer satisfaction levels.
• Performance: As a result of the three benefits above, agent performance is much more likely to improve quickly. Timely, accurate quality assurance evaluations can indicate which agents need additional training. The overall agent performance helps the leaders understand better which agent’s performance can limit the delivery of effortless customer experience.

Of course, there is no AI software, to this point, that can run without the benefit of people’s insight and interaction. It is the combination of people and Artificial Intelligence that produces the most complete data, intelligent insights, and helpful recommendations. With the automated functions in the call center, it is imperative to have people to monitor the transactions for quality services. The people make the whole AI functionality work to offer exceptional customer experience to the customers.

Customers have always wanted seamless and effortless form of responses for their issues. According to Forrester’s report of 2014, understanding customer emotion and empathy are the most critical components to gain successful customer experience. Here, to touch the heart of the customer services being delivered, human touch is required. When you have both, your investment in AI software can facilitate a marked improvement in agent success and retention, customer satisfaction and overall operational efficiencies.

Artificial Intelligence along with people represents a huge step forward in delivering exceptional customer service experience. However, for its success, AI technology needs to be combined with conventional people skills to deliver a seamless customer experience which can balance customer interactions with empathy. This would ultimately provide a tailored experience for every customer’s issues and needs.