29.07.2020

Why AI Is Fundamental

Artificial Intelligence (AI), has the power to ensure that your company is providing the best customer service that it can. Here is a 3-step guide on how to use AI effectively in order to revolutionise your company’s contact centre. 

It has been proven that when used effectively, tools such as Chatbots and Agent Assistants have the power to boost agent productivity and increase customer satisfaction. According to research conducted by Microsoft, over half of business leaders (51%) in the UK say that their organisation does not have any form of AI strategy in place (Microsoft 2018*). Moreover, Gartner has warned that any customer-facing brand that has not already implemented a AI platform into their organisation “runs the risk of  being left behind by the competition” (Gartner 2019*). 

It is essential that in order for AI to be a successful tool in transforming your brand’s customer experience, a 3-step pragmatic approach must be considered:

1. Begin with the customer – Firstly consider where AI would fit within your business, and then consider the importance of constructing your strategy based on your customer requirements. Where should AI sit within your business? And at what point should a customer’s enquiry be guided to a human customer service agent? Testing is an essential part to ensure that you are achieving results. An effective way to do this is to pretend that you are a customer yourself to see what your AI experience is like. Most importantly, transitions between virtual and live-agents must be seamless – there must be no obvious transition between the two.

2. Educate your agents – Use AI tools to help them understand the benefits of AI to simplify tasks and interactions. AI can sort through information so that the agent doesn’t have to – allowing them to put all their time and effort into the customer to ensure complete satisfaction. 

3. Machine learning – by implementing the latest versions of virtual assistants and chatbots, the better the learning from the contact centre. This enables agents to have the knowledge they need to provide customers with solutions to their enquiries. The more chatbots and virtual assistants used by businesses, the better and more successful they are. 

AI is an essential tool to connect the digital and human worlds to provide the best customer experience. Live agents are provided with all the information that they need, to ensure that there is a seamless transition between virtual and live agents. AI can also assess customer conversations, which introduces products based on their previous purchase history – vastly improving service levels.

Act now in order for AI to become an integral part of your business, to improve customer satisfaction and agent productivity. Implement a strategy to provide agents with education so they can get the most out of AI. Choose technology that is easy to use, best suited to your business and will be successful going forward. 

References:

Microsoft – ‘Maximising the AI Opportunity’ report published in October 2018
Gartner Inc – ‘Market Guide for Virtual Customer Assistants’ published on 11th July 2019

This blog was posted by: Mark Conway
Posted by: CCP Recruitment