According to NICE, call center agents and their managers across 12 verticals indicated an average turnover rate of 42%. In an era when customers have increasingly high expectations for personalized service, agents can soon become overworked and burned out, prompting them to seek alternative work.
Furthermore, adding staff members comes at a high cost for contact centers. According to McKinsey & Company, replacing a call center agent costs $10,000 to $20,000 after accounting for hiring, training, and reduced efficiency while the new person learns the ropes.
However, thanks to contact center automation, you can make your agents’ jobs more interesting and less stressful while also getting more done without adding more people. In fact, your call center—or those of your competitors—are probably already using AI-driven solutions. According to a recent report, AI adoption has increased from 59% of contact centers to an impressive 90% in the last year.
You can delegate mundane and basic work to bots using technologies such as conversational artificial intelligence (AI) and robotic process automation (RPA), freeing up your human staff to tackle more difficult and exciting jobs.
In this article, we discuss the importance of AI in call centers and also help you figure out the different ways that you can automate your solutions to enhance customer experience. Read along!
Importance of AI in Call Center Solutions
One of the most significant advantages of cloud call center solution automation is increased call center agent productivity. Automated processes can help free up agents’ time for more difficult customer care issues by reducing their time spent on routine chores. Here are some additional significant benefits of call center automation:
- Increased efficiency: Reduces the need for human data entry and allows for quicker execution of orders, leading to a more productive call center operation. This can also improve both speed and precision while also lowering labor expenses.
- Improved data security: Assists in preventing unauthorized access to client information by improved data encryption, verification, and other safety protocols.
- Improved customer experience: Allows agents to swiftly answer common inquiries and provide assistance at any time. This leads to a more positive customer experience and allows agents to quickly handle client issues while boosting overall satisfaction levels.
- Reduced operational expenses: By automating certain processes, such as data entry, call centers can cut operational costs and enhance their bottom line. Scalability is also enabled via automation, allowing organizations to swiftly grow or decrease their operations as needed.
- Improved accuracy: By eliminating manual processes from the picture, human error is eliminated, resulting in more precise customer data input and reporting, fewer mistakes, and better customer service.
5 Ways to Leverage Artificial Intelligence in Call Centers
Companies in the contact center industry are quickly realizing the benefits of AI and are using it more and more to improve customer experience. While it comes as no surprise that call centers use technology to cut costs, current innovations and advancements in AI position it to contribute to improving the customer experience.
Speaking of that, here are a few ways that you can leverage AI to automate your solutions and enhance your call center’s operations:
Chatbots
One of the most common applications of contact center AI is AI Virtual Agents and chatbots. These solutions can be installed on your website, app, and social media channels to handle massive numbers of FAQs and basic problems automatically. In fact, 62% of customers said that they would rather prefer a customer service bot than wait for human agents.
These virtual assistants can generate leads, give personalisation, and gather useful insights by collecting client data in addition to providing automated customer care.
They can even route customer support queries to the most relevant agent/department by capturing basic information about the customer’s problem before escalating. This not only saves your agents time, but it also ensures that your consumers receive the finest service for their individual circumstances – without having to repeat themselves to different representatives.
Around 76% of call centers already use some kind of robot technology, which makes sense. With an AI-powered bot handling regular chores and frequently asked queries, your agents will have more time to devote to the customers who need them the most.
Real-Time Translation
With real-time translating technology, call centers can communicate WITH customers in their native language. It detects languages and translates messages in real-time using machine learning (ML) and natural language processing (NLP).
NLP is a technique that allows artificial intelligence systems to grasp and analyze human language. It helps figure out how customers feel, what they need, and how to best meet those wants.
This allows your agents to interact smoothly and effectively with customers, regardless of the language they speak, resulting in a seamless experience for all of your international clientele.
Real-time translation is especially beneficial for contact centers that serve different nations or areas with diverse populations. Businesses may reach a larger audience and provide help to clients all around the world by offering real-time translation services.
Furthermore, real-time translation can assist organizations in providing a more personalized and compassionate client experience. Customers are more likely to have a positive experience when they can communicate in their language.
Interactive Voice Response (IVR)
Though they’ve been around long before AI, some modern intelligent IVR solution now incorporate AI-powered voice response and insights to automate call routing.
If you need to deliver an automated message, an IVR system can send personalized messages to your leads over numerous channels. To reduce the automated feel, use a conversational IVR system to assist customers and leads via a series of options.
Sentiment Analysis
AI-powered sentiment analysis systems monitor and analyze consumer feedback, reviews, and online interactions to determine customer sentiment. It works by analyzing client messages using NLP and ML to decide whether they are favorable, negative, or neutral.
This assists businesses in identifying areas for improvement, responding to consumer issues, and providing personalized experiences based on consumer preferences.
Some ways through which call centers can employ sentiment analysis are:
- Chatbot Monitoring
- Agent Performance
- Live Chat Monitoring
- Customer Feedback
AI-Assist Tools
AI-assist tools are new technologies that can aid your contact center personnel in providing great service and enhanced customer experiences.
They accomplish this by providing real-time support, suggestions, and guidance to your agents throughout client encounters. Here are two instances of AI-assist tools:
- OpenAI Responses – OpenAI is a major AI research and deployment business that created ChatGPT. It analyzes interactions and generates a set of response ideas depending on the customer’s message automatically.
- Google Agent Assist – Once educated and set, Google Agent Assist can give agents direction, ideas, and recommendations during client chat conversations. It works by analyzing your website’s knowledge base and/or past interaction transcripts to produce a list of relevant answer recommendations for each client communication.
Along with these methods, you can also use intelligent AI-routing systems that evaluate incoming client enquiries and direct them to the department or service person with the most appropriate experience or expertise. This guarantees that clients are connected to the correct individual who can effectively handle their needs.
Wrapping Up
The incorporation of AI and automation into cloud call center systems has transformed the customer service landscape, ushering it into the digital age. As technology advances, you may expect progressively more sophisticated applications of AI and automation in consumer engagement.
The next-generation cloud contact center will use advanced AI algorithms to anticipate customer demands, automate hard activities, and provide personalized experiences that exceed expectations. Furthermore, by leveraging the power of AI and automation, businesses can strengthen customer interactions, drive operational efficiencies, and stay ahead of the competition, ultimately changing the concept of the cloud contact center.
