Phones are ringing. The email inbox is flooded with questions. There’s a never-ending queue of live chat sessions waiting for a response. When working in a contact center, you have tasks coming at you the entire time you’re on shift. And if you drop the ball, it could cost the customer relationship. That’s a lot of pressure. That’s why many contact center managers are moving towards implementing AI and automation on their service teams to create an intelligent contact center.
Trends in the last two years show that contact centers are implementing new AI technology to increase customer satisfaction and reduce incoming volume. According to a recent survey by Call Centre Helper, as many as 52% of contact centers now have a strategy built around AI. And over 30% more percent of respondents state that they’re working on a new AI plan.
AI, or artificial intelligence, is all the rage at the moment. And for good reason. Implementing AI tech, like natural language processing, machine learning, and chatbots, into your contact center opens the door to more efficient customer service.
Let’s dig in.
What is an intelligent contact center?
To put it simply, an intelligent contact center is a call center that uses AI technology within its contact center platform to improve customer service interactions and drive efficient work. AI tech appears in a few forms in an intelligent contact center, each one uniquely helping you work faster:
Natural Language Processing
Natural language processing is a form of AI that can understand and interpret human language. Using text mining and sentiment analysis, NLP helps contact centers automate processes. AI can analyze customer feedback. It can categorize incoming requests. Or with NLP, chatbots can understand an incoming customer inquiry and respond in a human-like way.
Machine Learning
Machine learning lets AI track and identify patterns in customer data. It then learns from that information and uses those insights to automate certain tasks. With ML, your team can provide more intelligent customer service. For example, with machine learning, create personalized customer experiences, like giving customers automated recommendations based on past interactions or purchases.
Chatbots
AI chatbots use machine learning and NLP to talk with customers in a human-like way. They’re the “person” behind the conversation. With AI-powered chatbots, an intelligent contact center can handle routine customer inquiries, freeing up agents to focus on more complex issues.
4 pain points that an intelligent contact center solves
Anyone can experience burnout in their job. In fact, one Gallup study found that 76% of workers experience burnout sometimes, while 21% experience burnout very often. Contact center agents are among that “very often” category. This burnout then contributes to the problem of high turnover and significant absenteeism rates in call centers.
But AI has the power to alleviate some of that stress for your agents, making their work more enjoyable and successful. Let’s look at four pain points that an intelligent contact center can solve:
Manual, tedious, and repetitive tasks
There’s a lot of redundancy in the workday of a typical contact center agent. When I was a call center employee, most of my day consisted of filling out forms with customer information. I would then have to search databases to provide order numbers to customers, mine spreadsheets to find a data point in a report, and answer repetitive questions over email. Over time, this kind of work is draining. It takes time, but it’s not very rewarding, leading most agents to feel like a cog in a literal machine.
An intelligent contact center takes the burden of that tedious work off your agents’ shoulders. With automation and AI-powered workflows, your agents don’t have to deal with nearly as many manual or repetitive tasks. AI will organize info, mine and identify data points, then find and fill in order numbers. And chatbots can even answer the frequently asked questions or requests your customers send in, freeing your agents to do more rewarding work.
High customer expectations
We’re all getting used to instant service. And today, 52% of customers will switch to a competitor if they have a single negative impression. Plus, they’ll usually chew out a front-line agent before they leave. With high customer expectations, employees face a lot of pressure to deliver results to customers and management.
Here’s what that can feel like. Let’s say you’re running a long race. You’re exhausted, dehydrated, and your legs feel like jelly. You can see the finish line, but you’re not getting any closer, no matter how hard you run toward it. That’s what high expectations and poor goal setting can feel like to your contact center agents. They want to be successful, but they need the tools to help them get there. Implementing an intelligent contact center provides your team with important tools that make it possible to reach those high expectations.
As I mentioned, AI and automation speed up your workflows, getting customers help faster. With automated chatbots, customers can access immediate self-service and resources without taking time from your agents. The more deflection that happens, the faster your resolutions, the more customers you can help, and the lighter the ticket load. Using automated responses, NLP lets agents produce quick and accurate answers for customers.
Lack of personal development and growth
One of the primary reported reasons contact center agents leave their jobs is the need for more career development and growth. Why would they stick around if they’re not adding to their resumes? Contact center managers must be thoughtful about employee training, coaching, and career development opportunities. But how do you have the time for that when you’re getting slammed with customer requests?
Automation in an intelligent contact center helps deflect the high volume of incoming customer requests. Consider how many repetitive questions or requests you get from your customer base. There’s no need to use valuable agent time to handle those simple inquiries. Chatbots can answer these questions for customers, pulling data from your existing knowledge base or pre-programmed responses.
So then, your agents can devote more time to customers when real problem-solving is needed — the kind of issues that require a human brain to solve or the human touch of empathy. This kind of work lets your employees develop soft and hard technical skills. They can use their brains instead of just being a “cog in the machine.”
Difficulties finding accurate information
Recently, there has been a rising desire for more self-service tools. Customers want to find the answers themselves as fast as possible. An intelligent contact center platform empowers customers to get accurate help more quickly. It uses AI to pull information from your knowledge base and databases so customers can help themselves in just a few minutes. This tech means fewer repetitive customer inquiries and more accurate, consistent, error-free information.
But it also helps your agents stay up to speed on the most accurate product or service information you have. No one enjoys being out of the loop. I’ve been there before — backtracking after telling a customer outdated information. Even though it’s not your fault that the training you received no longer applies, you’re taking the heat. This feeling then contributes to an agent’s sense that they’re not valued. An intelligent contact center helps to prevent this experience.
Just as bots can help customers access self-service tools, it also serves your internal team. With chatbots and AI-powered search, agents can access an entire database of information just by asking a bot for an answer. It simplifies sharing information across your organization, so your team can get answers from a source of truth in a moment.
Ready to implement your own intelligent contact center? Consider Capacity’s platform. Try it for free today, or request a personalized demo for more information!
