VIDEO: 6 Key Roles of AI in Contact Centers
CCaaS
To fear or not to fear? What you need to know about AI for CCaaS
Founder & President
The contact center landscape is undergoing a rapid transformation due to the advent of AI, which is revolutionizing various aspects such as interaction handling, workforce optimization, and training. Some clients are looking to embrace this technology while maintaining their core values and identity; others are afraid of falling behind on all the latest updates; the deniers think that it’s just a trend that’ll pass eventually. While others are still reluctant to believe in all the benefits. Amidst all that confusion, here are some considerations and approaches you need to know about AI for CCaaS:
Thoughtful Integration
Contact centers can adopt AI technology by thoughtfully integrating it into their existing infrastructure. By leveraging AI-powered tools and solutions, they can enhance efficiency and effectiveness without compromising their core values. It’s crucial to select AI systems that align with the organization’s principles and goals.
AI has the potential to automate certain tasks traditionally performed by contact center agents. Here are some ways in which AI can replace and/or augment agents:
- AI Enabled Bots: Whether it is website chat, SMS text, WhatsApp or even e-mail, AI-powered bots can handle basic customer inquiries and provide automated responses in real-time. They use natural language processing and machine learning algorithms to understand customer queries and deliver appropriate answers. AI enabled bots can efficiently handle routine tasks, freeing up human agents to focus on more complex and higher-value interactions.
- Interactive Voice Response (IVR) Systems: AI-powered IVR systems can handle incoming calls and guide customers through self-service options. By using speech recognition and natural language understanding, these systems can understand customer requests and provide automated assistance without the need for human intervention. IVR systems can handle tasks like balance inquiries, appointment scheduling, and simple troubleshooting.
- Process Automation: AI can automate repetitive and rule-based processes within the contact center. For example, it can handle data entry, call routing, and information retrieval from databases. By automating these tasks, AI reduces the need for manual intervention, improving efficiency and reducing the workload on agents.
Continuous Training and Development
This is one of the most overlooked powerful punches of AI. While AI enhances training in contact centers, it’s essential to strike a balance between technology and human touch. Contact centers should ensure that AI is used as a tool to augment and support human agents, rather than replacing them.
- Personalized Learning: AI can analyze individual agent performance, identify knowledge gaps, and provide personalized training modules based on specific needs. This targeted approach helps agents focus on areas where they need improvement, leading to more effective and efficient training.
- Real-time Feedback: AI-powered tools can monitor agent interactions in real time and provide immediate feedback. This feedback can include suggestions for improvement, highlighting best practices, and addressing areas of concern. Agents can receive actionable insights during training sessions, allowing them to make necessary adjustments and enhance their performance promptly.
- Natural Language Processing: AI-powered natural language processing (NLP) technology can analyze customer interactions and provide agents with transcripts and sentiment analysis. This enables trainers to identify patterns, assess customer satisfaction levels, and offer targeted guidance to improve communication skills and problem-solving abilities.
Ethical Frameworks and Guidelines
Contact centers can establish ethical frameworks and guidelines for AI usage. By defining clear boundaries and principles, organizations can ensure that AI technologies are used responsibly, respecting customer privacy, data security and maintaining transparency. Upholding these core values will help contact centers preserve their identity throughout the AI integration process.
By adopting these strategies, contact centers can successfully incorporate AI into their operations while staying true to their core values and identity. Interested in learning more? Contact us to help you determine the best option for you CCaaS.
CCaaS: what to look for in a provider
Founder & President
When it comes to the CCaaS vertical we have seen feature functionality changes throughout the years. Most recently, AI has been inserted into CCaaS as a seemingly viable augmentation of existing product sets and in some cases a brand-new feature set. Features, such as chat, SMS Text, email, social media, outbound dialers, and other options, often attract customers to providers.
However, it is important to understand the differentiators between providers and their underlying feature set, and who is providing them. There are very few providers who own and support 100% of their own product stack (TFN/DID voice, dialer, SMS Text, chat, email, social media, visual IVR, WFO/WFM etc.).
Some providers try to conceal this important information and others broadcast it as a “value add” with their go-to market strategy. The key take-away from this is if the supplier does not own a part of their technology stack, it is important to understand the SLA and support agreements that are in place.
The provider’s “added value“
Features are an exciting part of CCaaS, however, it is vital to review how services are architected and supported. CCaaS providers vary on how they are built. Some are built on their own infrastructure, while others utilize hyperscalers such as AWS/Azure/Google in multiple availability zones.
However, most have adopted a hybrid approach. In the hybrid approach, some providers are extending their environment by using hyperscalers for storage and reporting feature sets, while others are moving critical applications into this style of infrastructure.
Then there are CCaaS providers who white label and provide tier 1 and 2 engineering support, but don’t own the underlying technology. This can be beneficial if the white label provider has extremely proficient support models, wholesale pricing or deep integrations.
What’s most important?
It is helpful to know the pros and cons of the providers infrastructure, but one of the most important items to review are their BCP, and DR failover. Some good questions to ask are; How often is BCP and DR tested? What is the latest documentation/how often does the testing take place? One thing we all know about technology, it can fail.
While SMS text, chat, email and social media can have delayed response in the event of a DR failover, DID/TFN voice should be seamless. It is vital for the provider to be their own RESPORG and have a failover strategy.
If there are issues with TFN and DID services, this allows them to move to a different voice strategy or underlying provider. Some CCaaS providers give the option to bring your own voice provider. Traditionally this can create finger pointing and adds complexity to the solution, however, there can be beneficial cost considerations with bringing your own voice to a CCaaS environment.
Regardless of what provider you are entertaining for your CCaaS solution, it is important to look under the hood to see how services are being provided and not get caught up in the sizzle.