Revolutionizing Contact Center Operations With Artificial Intelligence

October 31, 2023

Revolutionizing Contact Center Operations With Artificial Intelligence

The AI revolution is currently underway, and it’s causing a transformation in the way organizations, whether big or small, operate. Machine learning solutions that are custom-tailored to solve specific problems in various industries have been rolled out and are poised to grow dramatically in the coming years. 

In recent years, contact centers have become more sophisticated thanks to the adoption of AI. 

Keep reading to learn about the exciting ways in which AI has impacted customer service and contact centers.

Artificial Intelligence in Contact Centers

The impact of AI on customer service industries and contact centers is significant. AI tools like chatbots, talkbots, and analytics have made it possible for contact centers to operate 24/7 and respond instantly to customers on a large scale. With AI taking over simple, repetitive tasks, agents can now focus on customers requiring specialized attention, leading to increased efficiency and customer satisfaction. 

AI-enhanced automation strategies have proven to be effective in engaging customers and reducing failures caused by poorly performing human agents. Additionally, AI learns from every customer interaction, leading to continuous improvement and significantly reducing the cost of monitoring and training in contact centers.

Best Use Cases of AI in Contact Centers

AI-powered contact centers are the answer to today’s customer demand for quick and efficient service. Let’s take a look at some of the best use cases of AI in contact centers.

Call Routing

AI-powered call routing system uses machine learning algorithms to analyze incoming calls and direct them to the most suitable agent based on their skills, expertise, and availability. It does this based on reasons for calling. This could be customer service inquiries, technical support issues, sales calls, or billing concerns. 

AI integrates with data sources, such as CRM systems, to access relevant customer information, then uses skills-based routing, predictive routing, and customer priority to match callers with the most suitable agents. Additionally, contact centers use AI in handling multichannel routing, such as chat and email. 

Call Recording and Text Capture

It is crucial to record and analyze all communication channels through AI-driven call recording and the capture of non-voice interactions like SMS, email, and chat. This includes interactions between customers and agents, which are important for resolving disputes, especially in legal matters. 

In addition, call recordings and transcripts can be used by managers to evaluate the quality of call scripts and training materials given to agents. The recordings help identify areas where agents may require coaching, allowing managers to update training materials accordingly.

Call Transcriptions

When a call comes through, the AI listens to the conversation and transcribes it into text. This text is displayed on the agent’s screen in real-time, enabling them to read and respond to customer queries more effectively. Live transcription not only assists agents in understanding the conversation better but also offers a valuable reference document for future interactions.

Speech Analytics

AI algorithms can detect patterns, identify trends, and provide insights that help managers make data-driven decisions.  Speech Analytics converts spoken words into text, making it easier to search and analyze customer conversations. This transcription process enables contact centers to track keywords and phrases that are important to their business, such as product names, competitor mentions, or compliance-related terms.

Speech analytics can automatically assess calls as they happen, enabling real-time monitoring. This ensures agents get the required coaching to help them handle customer inquiries better and promptly resolve issues.

AI-enhanced speech analytics also helps reduce call volume by recognizing recurring call patterns, thereby helping organizations enhance both their physical and online customer interactions.

Sentiment Analysis 

Service calls can tell you a lot about your customer’s sentiments about your business. Contact centers use AI-powered sentiment analysis to analyze customer interactions in real time or post interaction. When a customer calls or engages through chat or email, AI algorithms can swiftly assess the sentiment of the conversation, identifying whether the customer is happy, frustrated, or neutral. 

This real-time or post interaction analysis allows contact center agents to adjust their communication style and approach, ensuring they can better meet customer needs and expectations. For instance, in a real time environment if the AI detects a frustrated customer, the contact center agent can quickly offer a more empathetic and solution-focused response, which can help resolve issues more efficiently.

Real-time Agent Assist 

In this context, AI is deployed to offer immediate support to agents during live customer interactions.  If a conversation takes a negative turn, the AI may recommend additional support to retain the customer. This helps agents defuse tense situations and enhance customer satisfaction.

Additionally,  agents get access to AI-powered knowledge bases during calls. Through this, AI suggests articles, manuals, or solutions based on the ongoing conversation. This streamlines issue resolution and allows agents to provide accurate and up-to-date information to customers.

Automatic Reply for Deflected Calls

AI-powered automatic reply systems manage high call volumes, reduce wait times, and provide consistent and accurate responses to customer inquiries. A common application of AI in this context is using chatbots or virtual assistants. These conversationally interact with callers, asking for their needs and providing relevant assistance. 

They can handle routine inquiries, such as checking account balances, tracking orders, or scheduling appointments, all while freeing up human agents to focus on more complex and demanding tasks.

Quality Assurance

Contact center quality assurance is often challenging because of the sheer volume of calls and interactions requiring assessment. This is where AI comes in. With its speed and accuracy more contacts can be evaluated increasing information available to drive improvements in contact centers, improving customer satisfaction, sales, handle times, first call resolution and other meaningful metrics.. Some of the quality assurance activities enhanced by AI include Agent coaching, voice analytics, sales performance, speech and more.

Call Criteria’s Human-Backed Contact Center Artificial Intelligence

In today’s world, where businesses are constantly seeking to better understand their customers, AI has emerged as a powerful tool to improve knowledge and exploit untapped information. However, while AI can provide valuable insights, it is subject to errors and inaccuracies and needs consistent monitoring and tuning to improve outcomes and accuracy. For example, when analyzing the sentiment of a call, AI may rely solely on the words, volme and pace used, missing cues that can only be captured by the human ear resultling in a mis-classificaiton of the call.Unfortunately, many contact center quality assurance providers do not acknowledge this shortcoming and their customers are unprepared for the effort required to provide this internally or as a paid service

At Call Criteria, we recognize the limitations of AI and incorporate a human review process to ensure the AI remains properly tuned. Our method guarantees 99.95% accuracy in quality assurance results. As part of our process analysts review interactions and their findings are compared with those of our AI system to identify areas where the AI solution needs additoinal information or retraining.

By choosing Call Criteria, you can ensure your team remains accountable and your contact center performs at its best, improving overall customer experience. Contact us today to learn more about our human-backed AI-powered contact center solutions.