The trend towards the digitization of services and the growing need to reach the consumer through multiple channels has enabled a change in the business model. Now, more focused on offering the user a two-way and personalized experience throughout the purchase process. In addition, thanks to the evolution of artificial intelligence, knowing, understanding and predicting customer needs, and adding value based on these, is essential to guarantee the success of any contact center. The Customer Journey is now a vital process to attention to.
Why integrate artificial intelligence solutions in your contact center?
Many contact centers, especially large companies and firms, have automated the processes for handling calls and customer incidents through the use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools, such as bots. In this way, management becomes more fluid and fast for both clients and agents.
In addition, the use of AI also represents a qualitative leap to collect, analyze and interpret the large amount of data that is generated from any interaction with a potential consumer.
The use of artificial intelligence in a Contact Center
When we talk about automation, we mean the integration of solutions that make life easier for both the user and the agent. These are based on generating responses to queries automatically without requiring an investment of time for the agent.
We can count on IVRs (interactive voice responses), Chatbots, or DLA (automated call distribution), among others.
Although these tools generate many facilities, they are often highly questioned, because for many people, talking to a human agent is always much more decisive than doing it with a bot. And so, how can I be sure that my customers receive a satisfactory treatment?
The answer to this question is not simple. However, the advantages of robots are almost guaranteed in the vast majority of cases. In fact, it is currently rare to find a call center that does not apply a bot in the management of calls or any of the contact channels between customers and the company.
Using a bot in the contact center
The use of bots in a contact center allows you to filter calls, answer simple and frequent questions, and save agents time. Of course, all of this has an impact on the workflow. Thanks to these new tools integrated into the software, they can focus on much more dense and complex queries, and offer a much more dedicated and agile customer service. Something that could not happen if all calls go through the human filter.
Many people still think that robots deprive customers of a human response and treatment. However, and thanks to advances in technology, bots have been improving their conversation capacity and can now, in many cases, maintain a fluent, personalized, and above all, effective chat.
Their learning method resides in each conversation. Bots learn not only from the data provided during their set-up (databases, frequently asked questions, customer and company data,…), but also from interaction with customers. The NLP technique (Natural Language Processing) is what these robots follow to reach the high level of humanity that characterizes them.
The set up of bots in a Contact Center
The set-up of any bot requires, of course, the involvement and documentation work of the company. For this reason, before initiating actions, it is essential to collect and process data, meet customers and establish priorities within a call center department.
When talking about priorities, you must take into account the questions and the phases in which the bot must be activated and forward the calls to the human telemarketers.
Each of these details can only be known with a well formed, cohesive and involved team with each client and with the company’s actions. You have to consider that the bot should soak up this knowledge, but only humans (agents) can transmit it.
In fact, the integration of artificial intelligence should be considered as a hybrid tool between technology and the service offered by the human agent. Thus, being able to recognize when it is time to refer the call, either due to its complexity or for other reasons, to a real agent.
The advantages of integrating artificial intelligence in your Contact Center
- Automation of interactions. Not only does it make it easier for us to provide 24/7 customer self-service through automated suggestions, but those suggestions can also serve as quick search tools for agents.
- Increased work efficiency, allowing the agent to focus on more complex tasks with higher added value, by using AI to solve problems that arise repeatedly and answer the most common questions.
- Improve the buying process by understanding customer habits. Algorithms learn from experience and improve over time based on the success or failure of previous interactions, allowing offers to be much more personalized with consequent increased satisfaction and brand loyalty.
- Quick resolution of problems. Through virtual assistants or chatbots we shorten interactions and reduce their frequency, thus improving First Contact Resolution.
- Algorithms are becoming more sophisticated and copy human intelligence. Analyzing specific behaviors allows us greater personalization and more precise segmentation when making decisions or making recommendations to groups that share attributes, which means optimizing individual experiences on a large scale.
- Knowing the emotions of the customer to identify possible weak points in their relationship with the brand, in order to act accordingly and reinforce them.
- Optimize the content. It allows us to choose the most appropriate channel to reach each user and do it in the most appropriate way.
How to know if I should integrate artificial intelligence in my contact center
At this point, the answer to the question “should I implement bots in my company or not?” It is not fixed, on the contrary, it depends on each case. First of all, the business owner must know the sector and be aware of what is most important in the company. Once the analysis is done, the solution will quickly come to the mind of the person.
The most appropriate thing is to implement any tool that improves not only the situation and the tasks of your agents, but also the customer experience.
Customers always need a person to serve them, so the entire process should not be automated. Bots are the solution to improve customer service, because the more time agents save, the more focused they will be on those tasks and questions that do require a human touch.
How our omnichannel software can help you
The capabilities offered by AI lead us towards intelligent management to improve the customer experience and, consequently, the company’s results. The Contact Center is a technologically leading sector, however, we must always take into account the human connection that must exist between the brand and the consumer.
To get the most out of it, it is imperative to keep a hybrid approach that combines technology and people. Request a demo of our omnichannel contact center software and discover the facilities we can offer you.
Discover EVOLUTION: an agile and stable software for your contact center.