Contact Center Self Service and the Customer Experience

Automating parts of your Contact Center tasks are at the top of the list when considering how to transform your business.  AI fueled self-service options help to improve internal productivity, the customer experience and cost efficiency.

Savvy companies are looking inward to find the best instances where automation is feasible. The customer benefits from self-service options, making their experience quick and easy.  Contact Center agents and supervisors profit from workforce optimization (WFO) support as the assessments provide properly measure contact center performance. Probably the biggest issue relates to how a business can  add or upgrade their self-service technology to create a better customer experience.

Fewer Humans for a More Human Connection

Surveys conducted in the US and the UK both show that Millennials prefer to avoid human interaction on the job. Abbyy found that a much larger percentage of young workers either reported hating speaking to customers or would delegate such a task to a bot if presented with the choice. This trend is surprising considering the same survey found that younger workers don’t necessarily believe the automated bot would do a better job than a human. These workers seem to be less confident in their speaking and communication skills, but more willing to reduce the customer experience to avoid potentially uncomfortable interactions.

Better Assessments for Faster Customer Experience Upgrades

Many of the best metrics for customer experience are actually lagging indicators. Popular measurements such as engagement, retention, first contact resolution and Net Promoter Score (NPS) do not really start to provide valuable information until after the customer experience is completed. For instance, if your NPS is good, you can say that the past experience you gave a customer was adequate. However, you can’t do much proactively with this kind of an assessment.

With newer customer experience systems fueled by technology like Watson, companies can begin to improve the overall customer experience without the need for all of the trial and error. Taking the human bias out of a business interaction allows for a much streamlined assessment, reducing the amount of noise that would normally be covering the most important variables.

The Questions to Ask to Fuel Innovations

Although every company is different, there are some overarching themes that should move through the decisions of every business when deciding on a new technology or process upgrade. In terms of automated services, here are some of the most important considerations –

  • What could my service channels accomplish if we eliminated some of our existing outdated systems that might be creating a bottleneck?
  • Although humans don’t necessarily want human interactions at work, they do want those interactions they have to blend well with new technology. How can I best provide these options for self-service and determine when to scale their use up and down?
  • Are there components that I might combine with proprietary technologies to allow my company to create a more personalized service?

Answering these questions will help a company determine how best to move forward with the numerous call center technologies that are driving productivity and cost efficiency.

How AI Helps

Once you answer the questions above and proceed to install new add-ons and upgrades, you should see some immediate results of your structure change. Here are some of the ways you can expect AI infused technology to help the customer experience in your contact center.

  • Handling repetition – The more rote tasks that human employees would usually have to waste time doing can now be assigned to tireless bots. You also virtually eliminate the human error that comes with your human agents becoming tired or emotionally disengaged.
  • Support for agents – Leading AI experts expect the technology to help, not replace humans contact center employees. There will be less room for low skilled work, but the support that AI gives to highly skilled agents will allow them to be much more productive and efficient.
  • Better metrics – Better WFO systems allow for the collection of proactive metrics. This does not mean that traditional metrics such as abandonment rates and first call resolution rates should no longer be assessed. As a matter of fact, they can be compiled much more accurately. From these statistics, your business can determine a more accurate ROI for its contact center investment.

Reviewing these major points will ensure that you upgrade your contact center self-service technology in a way that will directly influence the customer experience. Forget the notion of keeping up with the Joneses – there is too much good technology out there to simply have the so-called latest and greatest for no real reason.

Put your customers in the driver’s seat with the power to interact with your business when and where they want.  Waterfield Technologies can help you choose from a number of self-service options.

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