If it hasn’t already, artificial intelligence (AI) is coming to a contact centre near you – and not just in the form of the ubiquitous chatbots that pop up with their friendly greetings on sites you visit.
Industries are always looking to up their game when it comes to their marketing, customer service and experience, and one way many are doing this is by integrating contact centre artificial intelligence (AI), with 20% of all customer service requests expected to be handled by AI by 2022.
Contact Centre artificial intelligence (AI) can help to provide a more effective and efficient customer experience while saving businesses time and money by simplifying and easily integrating into their current workflow systems.
This is one of the most important ways businesses respond to and meet customers needs
It does this by providing human-like conversations via virtual agents. This increases time and cost efficiency, by minimising the time live agents are online and providing answers to simple, frequently-asked questions, to which solutions can easily be applied.
So how are real businesses utilising Contact Centre AI and what are the benefits of its implementation?
Marks and Spencer is one company that successfully integrated Google Cloud’s Contact Center AI (CCAI) with their workflow, enabling them to report an improvement of more than 10 seconds in its average handling time. Live agents are more satisfied as they no longer have to redirect calls and can work on more complex customer inquiries. Customers are also happier and in turn, brand loyalty has increased significantly.
GoDaddy has had a similar success rate by using Virtual Agent, powered by Dialogflow CX, a chatbot component of Google’s CCAI, which enhances the customer experience by allowing the business to create virtual agents that are able to handle all enquiries and offer simple solutions to frequently asked questions, meaning that more complex issues are passed on to live agents.
Popular US streaming service Hulu has also integrated this technology, by using Contact Centre AI to respond quickly and efficiently to customer enquiries. With quick responses to frequently asked questions, and automatic responses that help customers get the best experience possible.
With artificial intelligence (AI) becoming more progressive and the future of marketing leaning into new technologies, is now the time to invest in Contact Centre AI?
Marketsandmarkets predicts that the market for artificial intelligence (AI) technology in contact centres will increase from $800 million in 2019 to $2.8 billion by 2024. From increased customer satisfaction rates, to reducing live agent chat time, to automating business workflow, the proof is in the pudding.
When asked to share his thoughts for future trends in Datisan’s latest Digital Marketing Maturity Growth Report, Xpon Technologies Founder and Group Managing Director, Matt Forman says,
2021 will be one of the most exciting years yet for marketers that have invested in getting their data in order and ready to take advantage of the change and automation that modern cloud based AI and ML will deliver.
Contact Centre AI will not only have a positive impact on customers and clients, but also on the cost-effectiveness of business and on contact centre staff, with reduced live agent time and the ability of Contact Centre AI to handle smaller enquiries and complaints.
Watch Google’s video below on Contact Center AI:
What is Dialogflow?
Part of Google Cloud Platform, Dialogflow is a lifelike conversational AI with state-of-the-art virtual agents. It is available in two editions: Dialogflow CX (advanced), Dialogflow ES (standard).
Powered by Google’s leading AI, it supports rich, intuitive customer conversations in one comprehensive development platform for chatbots and voicebots. It’s goal is to improve the customer experience while increasing operational efficiency. Some of the key benefits of using Dialogflow include:
- Ability to interact naturally and accurately
- Building quickly and deploying universally
- Managing and scaling with ease
A Dialogflow agent is similar to a human call center agent. You train them both to handle expected conversation scenarios, and your training does not need to be overly explicit.