3 Ways Contact Center AI can Revolutionize Your Customer Service

The outsourced call center of the future is using next-generation technology to anticipate a customer’s inquiry, to predict what they’ll want to talk about, as well as provide omnichannel support that provides customers with the opportunity of self-service. This is all thanks to artificial intelligence (AI).

Artificial intelligence can completely revolutionize a business's customer service strategy, and leading contact centers have the technology and expertise to make this happen. You can learn more by checking out latest free downloadable eBook - How To Deliver Superior Customer Service With Contact Center AI - 

Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that this means contact centers are replacing humans with machines. AI is a way of leveraging advanced technology to improve the customer experience, reduce customer effort and empower customer support representatives to provide superior customer service.

So, what is artificial intelligence?

Thanks to Hollywood, when many of us picture AI machines we think of robots walking around the office with fully conscious brains - that probably won’t happen for a while yet. Contact center AI instead mimics the cognitive function of humans such as problem-solving, learning and reasoning.

Artificial intelligence in innovative contact centers is capable of drawing meaning from data, as well as mimicking real-life human conversations. The AI used in contact centers has three main functions:

1. Machine learning: AI programs are able to use machine learning to adapt to different circumstances and data patterns. This could include being able to detect sarcasm, mimicking, the change in volume and the change in pitch of a consumer to gain real-time insights into how a customer is feeling about a conversation.
2. Big data: Artificial intelligence is able to find patterns in large amounts of varied, fast-moving data to give customer service agents real-time data that empowers them to offer the best possible customer service.
3. Natural language processing: Natural language processing allows AI programs to understand language as spoken and written by humans, and reply to them as a human would. Through complex algorithms, chatbots are able to create a back-and-forth dialogue with customers and either answers their question or collate enough detailed data to direct them to a relevant customer service agent who can provide greater value to the customer.

How can contact center AI transform customer service?

All these tools mean one thing, superior customer service for your business. Through the use of outsourced contact center AI your business can improve its customer experience, reduce customer effort, provide a solution for self-service, improve customer service agent performance and, in return, boost profits.

Advantage Communications has listed the top three benefits of contact center AI that will completely revolutionize your company’s customer service:

1 - Reduce customer effort

Millennials are now the leading group of consumers, at 75 million strong in the US. Millennials in the US have an annual spending power of around $200m, combine that with their strong voice on social media and it’s clear to see this market is seriously affecting how businesses must view customer service.

That means customer support strategies must be updated for a new generation of clients. That strategy must include an omnichannel approach that focuses on reducing customer effort.

Outsourcing your call center to an expert that uses AI helps to significantly reduce customer effort by offering an omnichannel approach, allowing customers to get service on their preferred device without even needing to speak to a live agent in most cases.

This means less waiting on hold, better access to self-service tools, higher quality issue resolution and a proactive customer service that leaves customers feeling satisfied with your business.

2 - Anticipating customer needs

The big data of artificial intelligence means this state-of-the-art technology can provide real-time time updates and trend data to live customer service agents, meaning representatives can solve customer issues before they even existed or access live information that solves the issue right then and there.

A CRM software powered by AI will give customer service representatives the real-time information they need to deal with customer queries on the spot, while automated self-service technologies such as chatbots collate detailed information about a customer and their issue before passing them on to an agent who can offer superior support.

3 - Automation

Automating your customer service strategy using AI as the driving force will cut out the laborious manual processes associated with customer support and the errors associated with doing them over and over again.

An automated approach to customer service will open your customer support up for 24/7 support through chatbots, free up agents to work on higher-value support queries as well as collect a plethora of data that helps you to better understand your consumers and what they’re looking from your business.

Artificial intelligence is already playing a crucial role in contact centers and there are many more benefits for your business’s customer service strategy than we’ve listed above. If you want to learn more about contact center AI and its role in customer service, contact us today.