If you’re wondering which Amazon Connect features to focus on when implementing your new CCaaS technology, you’re in the right place. As one of the most powerful omnichannel contact center solutions available, Amazon Connect is brimming with unique functionality.
Not only does this platform offer companies a flexible way to manage interactions across a variety of channels, but it also leverages state-of-the-art technology such as AI and machine learning. Giving companies the freedom to personalize every discussion, empower agents with generative AI, and even reduce compliance issues, Amazon Connect is a CX game changer.
Today, we’re taking a closer look at some of the most impressive Amazon Connect features worth checking out in 2024 and beyond.
The Top Amazon Connect Features to Explore
If you’re looking for a leading omnichannel cloud contact center, Amazon Connect features a range of capabilities ideal for businesses of all sizes. The user-friendly solution combines numerous communication capabilities with solutions for agent productivity, empowerment, and insights.
Plus, AWS even helps new customers get started in the cloud contact center landscape, with up to 12 months of access to Connect for free.
Let’s take a closer look at some of the best features of Amazon Connect
1. CCaaS Combined with CPaaS
Like many top CCaaS vendors, Amazon offers companies various ways to unify and consolidate their technology stack. You can use Amazon’s “Connect Contact Control Panel” to give agents a UCaaS-like interface to collaborate with team members.
However, the variety of “CPaaS” solutions also available for business leaders differentiates Connect from its competitors. Amazon offers in-app web and video calling capabilities, which allow users to add personalized voice and video experiences to existing apps.
Companies can implement communication capabilities into their existing tools without any code using an SDK or communication widget. Plus, the solutions can pass contextual information to Amazon Connect automatically to help streamline customer conversation personalization, routing, and analytics.
2. The Drag and Drop Workflow Designer
One of our favorite Amazon Connect features for team efficiency and productivity is the drag-and-drop “Flows” workflow designer. This allows companies and users to create, enhance and automate complete agent and customer experiences across channels.
Users can design interactive voice responses and chatbot experiences to help customers address issues without agent input. You can also create step-by-step guides for agents to assist them with resolving issues faster and more intuitively.
The “Flows” feature integrates natively with AWS Lambda for more comprehensive automations across other AWS services and third-party apps. You can even design workflows that leverage Amazon Redshift, your CRM tools, and more.
3. Amazon Q in Amazon Connect Features
Like many CCaaS vendors, Amazon has recently begun exploring the benefits of generative AI in the contact center. In Amazon Connect, companies can now access the AWS assistant, “Amazon Q,” for various tasks.
Amazon Q is the evolved version of Amazon Connect Wisdom. It can analyze contact center conversations and calls and use generative AI to deliver information to agents proactively. This means staff members can rapidly use insights into customer profiles and business data to drive higher customer satisfaction.
Amazon Q in Connect also leverages real-time speech analytics and natural language processing to detect customer issues. It can then craft specific recommended responses and action items for agents based on historical and real-time context.
4. Omnichannel Inbound and Outbound Campaigns
Amazon Connect features all the tools businesses need to create genuinely omnichannel experiences for their audience. You can communicate with customers by voice, SMS, video, email, messaging apps, and more. Users get a single interface for chat, task, and routing management. You can even set up custom routing strategies with skills-based routing capabilities powered by AI.
Unlike some simpler contact center solutions, Amazon Connect doesn’t limit its omnichannel capabilities to inbound campaigns. Using the admin consoles, users can also create comprehensive outbound campaigns. You can use these to deliver appointment reminders, delivery information, marketing promotions, and more to customers at scale.
Amazon Connect even has its predictive dialer, designed to automatically contact customers on a list while throttling outreach according to agent availability. The dialer also uses machine learning to distinguish between voicemail greetings, busy signals, and live customers. Plus, a progressive mode ensures the dialer doesn’t start working until an agent is available.
5. Amazon Connect Features for Self-Service
If you’re investing in conversational AI tools and enhanced IVR systems for self-service, Amazon Connect features plenty of tools to help you reach your goals. Since Connect is integrated natively with Lex, you don’t need any coding knowledge to create and add chatbots to your workflows.
You can enable intelligent automation through all stages of the customer experience with task routing, interactive voice responses, and text-to-speech capabilities in over 30 languages. Amazon Connect IVR and the solution’s chatbots also use generative AI features like LLM-assisted slot resolution, utterance generation, and conversational FAQs.
Once a chatbot or IVR identifies a customer’s needs, it can automatically pass information and context to an agent if a human being needs to take over a conversation. Plus, Amazon Q can provide step-by-step guidance throughout the conversation.
6. Amazon Connect Features for Agent Productivity
We’ve already mentioned some Amazon Connect features ideal for boosting agent productivity, such as the “Flows” workflow builder. However, various other capabilities are built into the intuitive Connect workspace, too. Agents can access a comprehensive environment to access gen AI assistants, manage customer issues, and track conversations.
Business leaders can also create step-by-step tailored guides using the no-code editor to walk agents through processes like resolving customer issues or troubleshooting problems. These guides can be presented to agents based on contextual cues like customer information or self-service responses.
Amazon also has its own “Tasks” feature for Connect, which makes it easier to prioritize, assign, and track agent tasks through to completion. The generative AI features streamline repetitive tasks like taking notes with automatic conversation summarization.
7. Unified Customer Profiles and Case Management
To deliver truly personalized and memorable experiences, companies need to be able to collect and leverage consumer data. Amazon Connect features “Customer Profiles,” which provides service agents with real-time and up-to-date info about each customer.
Profiles can curate and align data from your contact center, databases, and CRMs into one unique environment. Plus, generative AI tools can combine contact history information with customer information about product orders and app interactions.
For more extensive customer management, Connect also offers a “Cases” tool that allows agents to manage conversations requiring multiple interactions and follow-up tasks effortlessly. Employees can document customer issues in a single environment with relevant case details and share them with their team members. Using Contact Lens, companies can also detect common themes and topics in customer queries to highlight prominent problems.
8. Amazon Connect Features for Forecasting and Planning
If you’re struggling to manage your contact center team and forecast future demand, Amazon Connect features tools to help you maximize your resources. Connect Forecasting uses machine learning to identify patterns and offer accurate, short-term, and long-term forecasts.
Users can also access advanced capacity planning tools to estimate “full-time equivalent” and staffing budgets. You can also use what-if analyses to fit your strategy. Plus, built-in scheduling tools leverage your forecasting and capacity planning data to create schedules that adapt automatically to your business goals and needs.
Business leaders can also allow agents to choose when they want to take time off or work overtime based on specific pre-determined parameters without manager approval. Connect can make real-time schedule adjustments using machine learning, freeing managers to focus on improving employee performance.
9. Analytics and Insights
Analytical and reporting tools are standard in most contact center solutions. However, Amazon Connect features particularly robust solutions. A powerful visual dashboard lets you track crucial metrics in real-time. You can also build reports based on historical data, adapting your insights to suit your business goals.
With Amazon Contact Lens, companies can better understand customer sentiment and conversation trends. Supervisors can even conduct fast full-text searches in transcripts to troubleshoot shared customer insights. Plus, you can set up real-time alerts to inform supervisors when agents need extra help addressing a problem.
Amazon Connect’s AI tools can automatically identify critical parts of a conversation and assign tags to those components. They can also display highlights of customer interactions and evaluate agent performance based on pre-set parameters and goals.
10. Security and Compliance Features
Finally, when reviewing the top Amazon Connect features, we can’t overlook the value of the platform’s security and compliance tools. Amazon Connect Voice ID uses machine learning to authenticate callers in real-time. Plus, instant fraud risk detection helps to minimize the risk of fraudulent conversations in the contact center.
Companies can also set up Amazon Connect rules, which help quality managers automatically check conversations for compliance with regulatory requirements and policies. Plus, Connect features in-built data redaction and data masking tools for sensitive information.
As an added benefit, companies can collect all the essential information they need for compliance from every conversation. There are even built-in screen recording tools that allow managers to listen to and watch agent actions when handling customer conversations.
Exploring the Best Amazon Connect Features
Amazon Connect features many amazing tools and capabilities for business owners looking to enhance CX scores and employee performance. Whether you’re investing in the latest generative AI capabilities for your team or expanding your outbound campaigns, Amazon Connect is an excellent tool. What’s more, as the tech giant continues to invest in the CCaaS space, the features of Connect will only continue to evolve.
If you’re ready to upgrade your business with a cutting-edge contact center solution, Amazon Connect could have just the functionality you need.
