Embracing AI in Contact Centers
Illustration: © AI For All
Like various business sectors across the modern digital landscape, contact center operators are grappling with the opportunities posed by Artificial Intelligence (AI), which is playing a pivotal role in reshaping their operations. Driven to swiftly capitalize on AI’s potential, operators are actively exploring immediate and long-term benefits.
AI's Potential
AI's potential raises numerous questions for contact center operators, including: how transformative is and will AI be, and what impact will it have on the role of agents?
Anecdotal evidence suggests that many contact center professionals anticipate AI to replace jobs and/or support employees so they can focus on more intricate tasks; AI can enhance customer call conversion rates; enable organizations to handle a greater volume of calls; foster business growth; and, consequently, provide more support to agents. There are encouraging signs that AI will be quite transformative in certain areas.
As AI technologies automate routine tasks, agents will need to pivot toward addressing complex customer inquiries, evolving into trusted brand ambassadors and guardians of customer satisfaction.
However, substantial challenges may persist. Agents can spend considerable time rectifying errors made by the existing generation of bots.
Progress demands more effective AI performance, moving away from the current fragmented and siloed approach. Additionally, agents should have comprehensive visibility into bot-led customer interactions, conversation quality, and its impact on customers.
Arming agents with key information before a call helps them analyze data and respond more effectively—a goal that numerous call centers struggle to achieve currently.
Practical Integration
Recent industry research, incorporating insights from 400 contact center managers across 10 countries, is a valuable gauge for the anticipated use of AI in the contact center in the short and long term.
Various use cases highlight AI's future role, with the top result indicating a focus on increasing agent and manager productivity by 25 percent. This is followed by optimizing forecasting and scheduling, understanding contact center productivity, predicting customer actions, and offering chatbot services to customers; each receiving a 20 percent response rate based on preference ranking.
The emphasis on productivity is particularly significant for customer experience (CX) organizations seeking ways to enhance output post-pandemic. Presently, only 49 percent of managers believe remote workers meet productivity expectations, a 24 percent decrease from 2020.
The Evolving Workplace
As AI becomes more pervasive in the contact center, employers must adapt to the evolving needs of their workforce. The impact of hybrid work has altered the contact center dynamic, emphasizing the vital role of AI-powered technology in workforce engagement.
This cultural shift has given rise to the concept of Contact Center as a Service, (CCaaS), relying on seamless technology integration for effective management. However, challenges arise when there is a lack of consensus among managers regarding the essential skills needed in this environment.
Comprehensive training initiatives can bridge the skills gap for agents in AI-powered contact centers of the future. Effective agent development depends on focused coaching and training, considering the role and impact of rapidly developing AI-enabled technologies.
Generational differences add another layer to the workforce dynamic. Balancing productivity with the unique work-life balance expectations of Gen Z and Gen Alpha is essential for effective workforce management.
AI as a Tool for Success
In this AI-enhanced ecosystem, change is inevitable in the development of contact centers in the years ahead. Success hinges on leaders prioritizing AI not just as a replacement for human agents but as a tool to help them develop and succeed.
The most effective contact centers will experience a seamless integration of employees and transformative technology, resulting in exceptional customer experiences and benefiting every stakeholder.
Customer Service
AI for Business
Enterprise AI
Chatbots
Customer Experience (CX)
Author
When it comes to Contact Centers, Dave Hoekstra has seen it all. He started his journey in the 90s as an agent and continued through every role a contact center has to offer, eventually finding his way into his current role of Evangelist. Being Calabrio’s Product Evangelist is by far the favorite of all his roles as it gives him the ability and pleasure of sharing his knowledge and experience with others in the industry. Combining 20+ years of experience in the industry with the rest of his life experience, Dave has a unique perspective of the tools, technology, and challenges faced by today’s modern CX organizations.
Author
When it comes to Contact Centers, Dave Hoekstra has seen it all. He started his journey in the 90s as an agent and continued through every role a contact center has to offer, eventually finding his way into his current role of Evangelist. Being Calabrio’s Product Evangelist is by far the favorite of all his roles as it gives him the ability and pleasure of sharing his knowledge and experience with others in the industry. Combining 20+ years of experience in the industry with the rest of his life experience, Dave has a unique perspective of the tools, technology, and challenges faced by today’s modern CX organizations.
