Contact Center Pipeline April 2024 | Page 42

A U . S . study in May 2023 discovered that customer service agents at an unnamed large firm worked 14 % faster on average while using an AI assistant , while the most skilled employees showed little across-the-board improvement .

We have all come across colleagues who are personable and have great rapport with clients but who struggle to get across the technical stuff . The right tools can level the playing field when it comes to technical ability and bring more of those people into our organizations .

A REVOLUTION IN CSAT MONITORING

As well as alerting managers to interactions that are going south in real time , AI sentiment analysis also allows for the production of CSAT scores for every call . This is a huge step up from the traditional reliance on post-call surveys , which we all know is a very patchy tool that tends only to reflect the most extreme CSAT outcomes .

AGENT EMPOWERMENT

AI platforms can now provide CSAT scores from 100 % of callers : without any additional action required from them .

This gives businesses access to a whole new level of insights into how their customers feel and how to better address their pain points . This helps managers focus team training on relevant aspects of customer care and zero in on individual agents who need more support and coaching . It provides managers with a metric through which to give out praise and even create healthy competition .

AI is also enabling businesses to reap the benefits of remote contact center operations , while overcoming many of the challenges it has created .

Remote work has allowed them to widen the talent pool from which they can hire . Companies no longer need to find hundreds of customer service staff that live within a few miles of a single building . People previously shut out of the workforce because of location or unavailability for full-time work can now plugin from home to do shifts at times that better suit them .

Even in an office environment , a contact center manager can ’ t expect to stay on top of everything that ’ s going on within their team . Instead , they have had to rely on ad hoc performance checks , patchy customer feedback , and staff seeking them out for help .

With the advent of AI , managers also now have access to tools that help them know where to focus their attention and how to get more out of their time with staff . AI can effectively act as a 24 / 7 coach , enabling organizations to reduce costs and better target their training .

AI sentiment monitoring , for example , can analyze customer satisfaction levels and flag if customers are getting frustrated or annoyed . Managers can respond to that data and communicate with agents while they are still on the call or , if necessary , take over .

AI can deliver call summaries and action items to show how closely agents have stuck to the script and ensure they complete follow-ups . Transcripts and summaries make it faster to evaluate calls and drill down on what could be improved . Coaching can be directed towards those who need it most and tailored to what will best help them .

These new capabilities are just as effective if employees are clustered together in one room or dispersed across a country or continent .

42 CONTACT CENTER PIPELINE

Many customer agents get monthly or quarterly ratings via an algorithm that they , and often their manager , don ’ t understand , which relates to interactions they have long forgotten . Immediate CSAT scores help agents feel rewarded and allow them to track their progress .

As this article makes clear , AI isn ’ t just delivering marginal gains to businesses ’ contact center operations . It represents a true paradigm shift in the way they can attain better , real-time insights into customer needs and faster , more targeted support for agents .

The intelligent application of AI will increasingly differentiate successful customer service operations from those that struggle to meet rising customer expectations .

Brian Peterson is a co-founder and the Chief Technology Officer at Dialpad . Previously , he was a Senior Software Engineer at Google , building the front end of Google Voice .