Contact Center Trends That Artificial Intelligence (AI) Can Help Accelerate!

I regularly use a discount brokerage app for equity investments, transferring funds from my savings account. Whenever I move a large amount, my bank calls me using an automated IVR system to confirm the transaction.

As a privileged customer, I have a relationship manager assigned. During one such large transfer, after the IVR confirmation, my relationship manager called to ensure everything was smooth. During the conversation, she casually brought up the transfer and asked if I had considered using the bank’s demat account instead of the discount brokerage.

I hadn’t, but after she explained the benefits, I decided to switch and now use the bank’s demat account for all my transactions.

This was a great example of a proactive relationship manager offering genuine value. But how often does this kind of interaction happen? Rarely.

And I don’t blame them. Even the best managers have daily KRAs to meet—and proactive engagement like this often isn’t one of them

This is where Artificial Intelligence can play an enormous role in helping you serve your customers better.

Here are four customer experience trends where AI can play a significant role.

1. Real-Time Analytics

How many times has a customer been sarcastic, and you did not get it as an agent?

How often have you failed to read between the lines when your customers were having a conversation with you?

How often have you felt helpless because you couldn’t find the right information to address your customer queries?

Imagine if you had real-time help here. Would you agree that you’d love it and your customers would love it too?

Real-time analytics would extract data from text and voice – your communication with your customers via email, chat, chatbots, mobile apps, website, and phone calls.

Customer interactions are assessed in real-time, especially when you are having a phone conversation or chatting, to discover behavioral patterns instantly.

AI provides a more in-depth understanding of each customer through past journeys and customer insights across interfaces and channels.

As the data set gets larger, you must scrub it to ensure your data is accurate and up to date to provide better customer resolutions.

2. Lower Attrition

Market research and advisory firm Metrigy discovered that 28% of agents quit their jobs in 2023, largely due to burnout, which is considered the highest percentage recorded.

The biggest cause for this attrition is that agents don’t find it easy to get the information the customers need, and they have to sift through multiple screens and systems. This invariably makes them frustrated and burnt out.

AI can support agent interactions with customers, helping them find information faster and assisting them with the most appropriate responses based on history and acquired knowledge from past journeys.

AI can also help with disposition and action items they need to pursue in an automated manner.

This would considerably reduce agent attrition, especially when caused by frustration and burnout.

3. Contact Centers as Profit Centers

Recall the experience that I shared with my relationship manager at my bank, who helped me subscribe to their demat account.

Can that be replicated easily?

It is very unlikely without systems in place.

With AI, your contact centers solution would move beyond being customer service or support centers and start to act as an extended sales arm of your organization.

AI can provide agents with data on customers, such as their transaction patterns, their likes and dislikes, and if they are candidates for services that go beyond support.

Most agents, however, don’t look forward to getting into a sales pitch. To get them to do it, you should support them with decision-making systems (powered by AI) and incentivize them appropriately.

4. Help AI With Omnichannel Capabilities

Not many contact centers have successfully implemented omnichannel capabilities.

It works both ways – as an agent, you get to have a single view of your customer information across all interfaces that you access, and as a customer, you get to switch between channels seamlessly without having to repeat yourself anytime.

With all of these integrations, your AI systems can derive insights from customer interactions across channels and interfaces, helping you make informed decisions in providing resolutions and upselling services or solutions to your customers. 

Check this article on : Creating Personalized Customer Journeys with AI

AI is the key to turning contact centers into profit centers. However, businesses have to understand what it takes to implement an AI strategy, and they should approach them in a phased manner.

The most important aspect of AI will be to assist agents in providing the best possible resolutions to their customers’ problems and empower them to deliver those solutions.

AI will be the biggest trend in 2024 and in the coming years, helping businesses offer better customer experiences.