Ever since Chat GPT stunned the world in November 2022, artificial intelligence (AI) has become nearly synonymous with generative AI and large language models. Thousands of products were created within 6 months of this innovative AI tool’s announcement, sealing its allure. But in contact centers, the value of AI goes far beyond just chat-based applications.
Channel of Choice
AI in contact centers encompasses the entire omnichannel experience — including voice, video, and even visual interactions. Customers want to engage in their preferred communication channel(s) and AI makes it possible, driving customer satisfaction and enhancing the overall customer experience.
Speech Analytics
AI-powered speech recognition and natural language processing (NLP) technologies transcribe and analyze customer interactions in real-time. This allows for sentiment analysis, call intent categorizations, and the identification of valuable agent and customer insights.
Contact centers can use this information not only to provide customers with more personalized and effective interactions, but also to drive significant program improvement across several areas:
- Customer retention. Speech analytics can help contact centers maintain and improve their customer retention rate by identifying the reasons why customers are calling and addressing their concerns.
- Quality assurance. Speech analytics can help contact centers monitor the quality of their interactions with customers by analyzing calls for compliance with company policies and procedures.
- Agent performance. Speech analytics can help contact centers identify areas where agents need additional training or coaching to improve their performance.
Virtual Agents
AI-driven virtual agents have become invaluable tools for contact centers. These conversational agents can handle routine requests, provide self-service options, guide customers through complex processes, and gather pertinent information should eventual human interaction be necessary. By offloading mundane tasks to virtual agents, human agents can focus on more complex and personal customer interactions.
Intelligent Routing
AI algorithms can analyze customer context and intent and then route calls to the best agents based on their skills, expertise, experience, and availability. Intelligent routing ensures that customers are connected with the right agents quickly, leading to reduced wait times, improved first-call resolution rates, and improved sales conversions.
Predictive Analytics
AI empowers contact centers with real-time predictive analytics that can help identify trends in customer behavior and predict future needs. This enables contact centers to proactively address issues before they become problems.
Predictive analytics can help contact centers improve program outcomes by:
- Bolstering customer retention, through use of applications like speech analytics
- Predicting follow-up contact success by helping determine which customers are most (and least) likely to respond positively in the future
- Increasing quality and efficiency by identifying areas prime for process improvement
By analyzing vast amounts of customer data, AI algorithms can identify patterns, detect anomalies, and provide agents with proactive recommendations during customer interactions through agent assist tools — enabling those agents to anticipate customer needs and offer personalized solutions.
In summary, AI’s impact on contact centers goes well beyond the release of ChatGPT and other chat-based applications. It encompasses video and voice interactions, speech analytics, virtual agents, intelligent routing, and predictive analytics. By embracing the full potential of AI in contact centers, organizations can delight customers, improve operational efficiencies, and drive overall business success.
