Data services firm Artefact has partnered with environment facilities manager Econocom to imbue the latter’s service desks with artificial intelligence-powered user support.
The partnership involves a dedicated artificial intelligence-based solution for Service Desks that utilises voice assistants with neural language processing (NLP) algorithms. More complex requests and queries are passed on to operators who are themselves assisted by AI systems – a practice Artefact refers to as the augmented human channel.
“The extraordinary wealth of operating data coupled with the latest machine learning and analysis capabilities of artificial intelligence can give support units an unprecedented ability to understand and resolve the incidents encountered by users,” said Vincent Luciani, co-CEO and co-founder of Artefact.
Key AI Areas for Service Desks
Artefact highlighted four key areas in which artificial intelligence is most applicable to service desks, all of which are found in Econom’s offering supported by Artefact:
- Query filtering (automatic dispatch to the right support unit)
- Measuring user satisfaction through voice analysis
- Analysing the data harvested, to enhance continuous improvement
- Assisting support agents (automated suggestion of solution guides)
The solution has been pioneered and implemented in France, where both companies are based. According to data cited by the company, even before the pandemic and the resulting spike in remote working, service desk requests were up 61% in 2018.
“The use of artificial intelligence should not eclipse the fundamentals of running a Service Desk, which require a fluid experience and rapid response on the user side, and clear, relevant information available on the agent side. We have implemented these solutions on several occasions, including for Econocom’s 6,000 employees in France and for a major player in the energy sector. The feedback we have received has been extremely positive. So, in our view, artificial intelligence is revolutionising the quality of responses provided, which helps to enhance end user satisfaction and to augment productivity end-to-end,” said Long Le Xuan, Chief Executive Officer, Econocom Infogérance Systèmes.
Artefact further emphasised that implementing AI does not require a change in how the service desk operates, with the system complementing whatever channel is used, such as phone, email or chat, to offer increased access to knowledge bases. It also extracts more value from the data gathered by service desks, with the two companies taking steps to conform data collection while abiding with the GDPR framework on data privacy.
