Customer experience and support leaders know better than anyone that the role of the agent can be a tough one. Contact Centers have experienced record volumes in recent years and there are no signs of that trend changing. In this environment, leaders need to consider how to improve live chat agent jobs with the right tools. AI and automation will be the key to success.
The majority of today’s customers are using chatbots for customer service and while great chatbots can deflect up to 90% of tickets, live chat agent jobs are still tremendously important for solving higher level problems. This means leaders need to continually invest in improving the agent experience.
According to Customer Contact Week, today’s agents are frustrated by the amount of time and effort they are spending to access the information they need to deliver helpful customer assistance. The good news? AI and automation can solve these challenges.
3 Ways to Improve Live Chat Agent Jobs with AI
Focusing on the agent experience can not only reduce agent attrition, but also lead to better customer experience outcomes. Here are three ways to improve live chat agent jobs with AI:
Make Knowledge Management Easier:Â
Live chat agents are only as good as the information they can provide. This is why it’s essential that organizations invest in a knowledge base that is intuitively organized and easy to use.Â
AI-powered knowledge bases make it effortless for agents to search for the right answers. Unlike past tools, AI-powered knowledge bases intelligently surface stale content so that your team can easily and continually improve answers. These tools alert your team to duplicative or conflicting answers. With the assistance of machine learning, leaders can understand if answers are accurate or unhelpful for agents.
With the right answers at their fingertips, live chat agent job tasks are quicker and can help your team save on its bottom line.
Show Agents the Full Customer Picture:
It’s incredibly difficult to do the live chat agent job well if you don’t have access to information about customers and their past interactions. This may sound obvious, but too many organizations are storing customer information across disparate platforms.
Live chat agents can be more effective if they don’t have to deal with customer tracking chaos. Your organization needs a CRM that tracks touchpoints across channels, including self-service and agent-assisted conversations.
Today’s customers interact across many channels and live chat agents can be most successful when they understand these cross-channel customer journeys. Armed with these insights, they can deliver excellent customer experiences and automation can help them easily track and optimize every interaction.
Implement Real-Time Agent Assistance:
Agents feel more empowered when they can deliver informed responses and know the right words to say. Agent training is essential, but AI can reinforce training principles by suggesting responses, editing them for clarity and generating action items. AI tools can even summarize issues to help agents keep their tickets flowing.
With AI-powered prompts and support, live chat agents can deliver faster, more accurate resolutions.
The live chat agent job isn’t without its challenges, but leaders who invest in AI and automation can alleviate long-standing pain points. Most importantly, when the agent experience improves, so does the customer experience.Â
Ready to learn more about how AI and automation can support your Contact Center’s future? Download our guidebook to learn more.
The Future of AI for Contact Centers
Discover:
- The different types of AI
- A framework for applying support automation
- Tips for choosing solutions