CREATE EXTRA CONTACT CENTRE CAPACITY WITH AI-POWERED BOTS

/ By Chris Szala, VP Sales, Verint South Africa /

An incredible aspect of modern technology is the helping hand it gives to humans. In most cases, technology makes our lives easier by taking care of tasks that we could be doing but would prefer to concentrate our efforts elsewhere.

Much like a GPS helps us navigate so we can focus on driving, AI (artificial intelligence) powered solutions can support teams across a contact centre, and beyond, to elevate CX while also increasing operational efficiency. The most effective AI solutions each carry out specific tasks that, in turn, increase your workforce’s capacity.

While the most obvious use cases mainly involve helping your contact centre agents, AI capabilities can also transform the workloads of supervisors and data analysts – saving countless hours across your company. Read on to see where you can leverage AI to create extra capacity across the workforce.

How AI Can Create Extra Agent Capacity

Automation and Autonomy: No Need for Human Input

IVAs (Intelligent Virtual Assistants) are perhaps the best-known example of AI’s ability to take the strain from contact centre teams. In effect, IVAs act as the gatekeeper for interactions, resolving the majority of customer queries.

A well-built IVA gives customers the ability to self-serve, and ideally contains the conversation without escalation to a human agent. This can significantly reduce the volume of conversations an agent is required to handle, giving them greater capacity to handle more complex cases.

After-Call Housekeeping

Manually writing call summaries can take up to 90 seconds out of an agent’s day per call, and you’re relying on their memory of an often complex conversation for an accurate, unbiased record. Why put that pressure on your workforce when higher precision options are available?

With accurate AI-driven transcription working in tandem with generative AI, a short and precise summary can be swiftly created, virtually eliminating after-call work. Automating this task translates into companies saving millions of dollars every year, simply by giving agents an extra 60-90 seconds back at the end of every customer call.

How AI Can Create Extra Supervisor Capacity

Efficient Staffing

Contact centre supervisors undertake a delicate balancing act; don’t overstaff when it’s quiet, but make sure enough agents are working to keep wait times down. Also, ensure a good work/life balance is possible, among all other responsibilities.

Forecasting solutions use AI to accurately predict volume and customer demand, which means that without being data specialists, contact centre managers can confidently set shift patterns that meet demand and reduce staffing costs.

A Flexible Workforce

The question of enabling a good work/life balance has become more prominent since the rise of remote working. Agents are not always tied to an office, so more flexible working conditions are possible, and expected.

AI’s ability to forecast customer volume means contact centre staffing needs can also be predicted. Technology that enables agents to adjust their shifts while also imposing limits that prevent a drop in service levels is ideal for both staff and supervisors. On the one hand, agents can adjust their work to fit around their lives, and on the other, management has more capacity to concentrate on other, more important aspects of their job. This works to minimize the chance of a staffing emergency through increased attrition or absentees, which drastically reduces staffing-related costs.

How AI Can Create Extra Supervisor Capacity

Precise Transcription

The accuracy of your engagement data dictates the quality of your insights. AI-powered transcription creates highly accurate engagement data and that data helps CX leaders to build data-driven strategies. When combined with interaction data, transcription provides analysts with access to an ever-increasing source of customer behavioral insights.

By analyzing these precise transcripts, analysts can more easily understand customer interactions by channel and any challenges they encounter. They can also determine how effectively bots and agents are resolving customer issues. These insights enable companies to build more successful CX strategies, helping to increase customer satisfaction, loyalty, and, ultimately, revenue.

Extra Capacity Means Better AI Outcomes

Leveraging AI-powered bots across voice, digital and social channels is the key to creating extra capacity for your workforce. While AI working on the frontline of customer engagement via IVAs is the most direct way to elevate CX and improve operational efficiency, there are plenty of other use cases which are just as effective. Whether your AIpowered solutions are helping with contact centre scheduling or unearthing insights that contribute to data-driven strategies, each creates an environment that continually optimizes your teams’ output.