Customize Consent Preferences

We use cookies to help you navigate efficiently and perform certain functions. You will find detailed information about all cookies under each consent category below.

The cookies that are categorized as "Necessary" are stored on your browser as they are essential for enabling the basic functionalities of the site. ... 

Always Active

Necessary cookies are required to enable the basic features of this site, such as providing secure log-in or adjusting your consent preferences. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable data.

No cookies to display.

Functional cookies help perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collecting feedback, and other third-party features.

No cookies to display.

Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics such as the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.

No cookies to display.

Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.

No cookies to display.

Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with customized advertisements based on the pages you visited previously and to analyze the effectiveness of the ad campaigns.

No cookies to display.

Conversational AI

Designing Impactful Agent and Customer Experiences with AI

By: Rob McDougall, CEO, Upstream Works

Contact centers and the customer experience (CX) landscape have dramatically changed in the last few years. Customer expectations for personalized and efficient services have increased and contact centers have witnessed considerable spikes in customer contact volumes. COVID-19 and the great resignation put additional strain on contact centers that were already dealing with staff shortages. These circumstances have forced contact centers to adapt, become more efficient and further emphasize the customer experience.

A big piece of this new puzzle is the introduction of intuitive artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities that help agents get up to speed faster and augment their abilities. With the support of properly operationalized AI applications and automated tasks, the agent experience has improved, which has resulted in quicker resolutions and increased first contact resolution (FCR) rates, bringing CX to a new level.

Enhancing the Agent Experience for Improved CX

On the backend, contact centers are seeing the benefit of integrating AI applications into their operations. It enables routine and repetitive tasks to be automated so that agents can spend more time focusing on meaningful customer interactions. Properly implemented, the use of chatbots, emailbots, robotic process automation (RPA) and machine learning (ML) can free up the agent’s time so that they can tackle complex inquiries that require a more personal touch. AI-powered agent guidance can further support agents with real-time assistance, including intent, sentiment and suggested responses, speeding up training and enabling agents to provide better CX.

CX is all too valuable for brands. 93% of consumers tend to repeat purchases with brands who offer exceptional customer service, according a report from HubSpot Research. A contact center’s ability to provide great CX is vital. The more they can retain customers, the better their business performs. AI is a tool that can better drive customer adoption of self-service and solve simple questions they have with minimal effort from agents. The faster a customer’s inquiry is solved, the happier they’ll be with the brand.

Overcoming Staffing Challenges

One of the biggest challenges that contact centers face is hiring and retaining agents. COVID-19 and the great resignation only further amplified this challenge. Many contact centers saw increased customer inquiries; however, they were not equipped to handle the higher volumes. This led to agent burnout along with a dip in customer satisfaction due to ineffective handling of the large volume of inquiries.  This is where AI became a crucial turning point for contact centers.

AI capabilities can help contact centers automate simple routine tasks where there is no need for agent assistance and provide an improved self-service interface. Questions about business hours, return policies and general account inquiries can be conversationally automated rather than using basic forms. These drive improved self-service containment and, as a result, agents can focus their time on complex customer inquiries that require more personalized service. Additionally, AI agent assistance arms agents with the information they need to tackle issues more consistently and accurately, with minimal risk and continued human oversight. This helps new agents get up to speed faster while onboarding, saving the contact center money in the long run. When agents are more successful in their role, they are happier and ultimately, retention improves.  

Removing AI Complexity

When searching for the right AI solution, business leaders should have a clear strategy for the kind of technology they want with a targeted approach and a narrowly defined scope of what the AI application does. This is where choosing the right partner becomes important. An agent desktop that integrates multiple AI and business applications into a consistent workspace means agents can be more productive and have a greater impact on the customer experience, without adding additional desktop complexity.

Understanding how AI works and how it will impact a business is crucial, as it will directly affect agents’ performance and the way they interact with customers. Taking a focused approach to AI automation helps drive down the time required for agents to perform tasks at hand, automates multiple tasks and streamlines the overall agent workload.

Well-thought-out AI applications that are integrated correctly remove complexity without adding new silos and can help increase the performance of existing contact centers by creating new efficiencies. More importantly, they can help to improve the agent experience for a better and more personalized customer experience.

Author

  • Rob McDougall

    Rob McDougall is the CEO of Upstream Works, a provider of omnichannel contact center desktop solutions that simplify and improve agent and customer experiences. Rob is an accomplished contact center leader and catalyst for change with a track record for omnichannel innovation and raising industry awareness of first contact resolution.

    View all posts

Related Articles

Back to top button