Every customer touchpoint – both human and digital – represents an opportunity to make an impression. Unfortunately, too often the impression made is awkward, bad, or just plain cringe-worthy. Maybe it’s the interactive voice response (IVR) system that makes you listen to a never-ending menu of options. It could be the chatbot that just doesn’t understand your question or offers completely irrelevant answers. It might even be the escalation of human agents who keep asking you to repeat the same information again and again.
From endless IVR options to unhelpful chatbots and repetitive human agent interactions, these encounters have the potential to damage a brand’s reputation, especially in the era of influential online reviews. However, with the increased accessibility of artificial intelligence (AI), businesses can take proactive steps to significantly improve customer experiences across various touchpoints.
Intelligently automating segments of the customer journey not only reduces costs but also enhances both employee and customer satisfaction. The key lies in deploying AI in a manner that aligns with sound customer experience (CX) principles and comprehending the underlying technology. Let’s explore three pivotal use cases where AI can drive considerable improvements:
1. Enhancing IVR systems
What kind of experience do customers receive when they call in to your help line? If the first thing they hear is, “Listen carefully as our menu has changed,” then you probably have an outdated IVR system. Because they follow a pre-determined sequence, traditional IVR systems cannot respond intelligently to customer requests, which leads to customer frustration.
Your customers want to effortlessly self-serve and quickly resolve problems on their own through automated channels. Unfortunately, because of design shortcomings, the IVR system often leads customers to choose the “Speak with representative option.” It’s often the customer’s least preferred channel, and your highest-cost channel.
Advances in conversational AI are heralding big improvements for IVR systems. An AI-enabled IVR, or intelligent virtual agent, can quickly and accurately help your customers resolve issues without human intervention. The incorporation of Natural Language Understanding (NLU) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) empowers conversational AI to adeptly decipher customer inquiries for seamless interactions.
The impact of these new IVR systems goes beyond responsiveness by revolutionizing the traditional menu options with unparalleled simplicity. Instead of using cumbersome question-based prompts, these systems pivot towards intuitive conversational interfaces where customers can articulate their concerns directly. By articulating their issues, customers can access precise responses or be efficiently directed to live agents for personalized assistance. Even better, some AI-powered IVR systems use advanced analytics to anticipate a question before the customer even asks it.
2. Transforming chatbots
Outdated rule-based chatbots are frequently limited by specific keywords and scripted responses, which can be exasperating for customers. When a customer asks a question, the bot searches for the right rule, and responds with a scripted reply based on a set of known keywords – and that often leads to customer frustration.
Transitioning to conversational AI-powered chatbots equipped with machine learning and natural language processing and natural language understanding enables a more intuitive understanding of human language and facilitates personalized recommendations, pre-emptive issue resolution, and fluid customer interactions.
Chatbots powered by conversational AI and ML can also identify common user issues and proactively provide solutions, resulting in a more helpful user experience. These chatbots can even “remember” past interactions and use that information to provide personalized recommendations and responses.
3. Addressing agent turnover
Speaking with an agent is often the last resort for a customer plagued with a problem they can’t solve through automated means. That means that by the time a customer reaches an agent they’re often already fed up. Being on the receiving end of these calls is stressful and compounding that is the fact that agents often have high call volumes and lack the tools they need to quickly solve problems. This leads to high turnover rates.
While AI can’t eliminate all agent stressors, it can help alleviate them by making workloads more manageable and giving agents the tools they need for success. Using conversational AI to improve IVR and chatbots will go a long way in reducing call volumes by making it easier for customers to problem-solve on their own. AI can also help predict peak call times so that supervisors can staff contact centers appropriately to meet high demand.
AI can also give agents the problem-solving tools they need with interactive knowledge centers that draw on knowledge bases, manuals, and FAQs to deliver answers to agents via tools in their contact center technology. In addition, automatic conversation summarization can replace a great deal of post-call work.
Although enhancing IVRs, improving chatbots, and reducing agent turnover represents just the tip of the iceberg, the strategic deployment of AI in customer service has the potential to revolutionize customer experiences. While automation offers numerous benefits, it should never impede customers from interacting with a brand.
Mark Eichten is executive director, voice and AI bot professional services, at TTEC Digital, a global leader in customer experience orchestration, combining technology and empathy at the point of conversation.
Mark Eichten
