The hype around artificial intelligence (AI) in the contact center has been steadily increasing for several years, with many organizations recognizing its power to transform daily processes and tasks. However, reports have begun to suggest that certain companies are avoiding AI deployment, due to the high costs of running advanced models.
According to 8×8, the contact center industry won’t be one of the sectors moving away from AI. In fact, there’s a good chance that investment in AI solutions will continue to grow, particularly as new innovations emerge to help contact centers reduce costs, improve productivity and enhance customer experiences. Contact centers recognise that in today’s fast-paced world, good customer service is what differentiate your brand from competitors.
A recent 8×8 reports indicated that embedding conversational AI into the contact center has increased productivity for 94% of respondents. So, if AI continues to thrive in the contact center, what can we expect in the years ahead?
The Emerging Trends for AI in Contact Centers
8×8 isn’t the only industry leader highlighting the increasing potential for AI in contact center settings. Metrigy predicts that up to 65.7% of inquiries will be resolved by AI in 2025 and contact centers without AI will need to invest in 2.3 times more agents. Customers are evolving, their needs are changing, and self-service is critical to the next generation of consumers.
Here are some of the key trends we can expect to shape the future of AI in customer service.
- Natural Language Processing Continues to Evolve
NLP (Natural Language Processing) is one of the most valuable components of AI in the contact center. Already, NLP solutions are revolutionizing self-service, turning Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems into convenient tools customers can navigate with just their voice.
Advancements in NLP algorithms, drawing on deep learning capabilities, and pre-trained language models, will make NLP systems even more effective at understanding nuances in customer voice and language. These solutions will pave the way for more advanced speech analytics processes, allowing companies to access insights into customer sentiment and emotion throughout the customer journey.
This will allow business leaders to craft customer experiences based on a deep understanding of a customer’s emotional state, leading to more empathetic, personalized interactions.
- Voice Assistants and Conversational AI
Conversational AI, the branch of artificial intelligence that enables computer programs to mimic human conversations with customers, draws on NLP, machine learning, and data to enhance customer interactions. Today’s conversational AI technologies are powering numerous contact center tools, from call routing technologies to interactive voice assistants.
The development of more advanced algorithms is leading to the introduction of voice assistants that can process more data in real-time, analyzing customer sentiment, and gathering information from customer profiles – paving the way for rapid self-service experiences.
According to a DimensionData survey, 44% of customers prioritize quick and convenient service over detailed, customized interactions. With the right conversational AI solutions, companies can build humanized chatbots that delight consumers with fast, relevant interactions.
- Enabling Proactive, Hyper-personalized Customer Support
Demand for proactivity is increasing in the contact center. Consumers want more than just “fast” responses to queries, they want companies to anticipate their needs. AI solutions offer an incredible opportunity to enable proactivity in the contact center.
It offers businesses an opportunity to use bots to rapidly notify customers about technical issues, changes to their accounts, and new products. It also allows organizations to analyze customer history and preferences on a massive scale.
This ensures companies can keep their customers engaged and informed automatically, without compromising on a highly relevant and personalized experience. Investing in proactive support doesn’t just boost customer satisfaction, it has the potential to increase sales.
HubSpot found customers who were given proactive support by brands were four times more inclined to promote those brands to their network.
- Enhancing Agent Assistance and Experience
Intelligent systems don’t just have the potential to offer real-time guidance and assistance to customers, they can also support agents throughout the customer journey. Now that customers have access to more self-service solutions than ever before, by the time they reach an agent, they expect fast, insightful, and convenient support.
AI solutions can enable this. Studies have shown that generative AI and conversational AI tools like ChatGPT can improve productivity by up to 87%. These tools can rapidly analyze data and surface insights for agents throughout the customer journey.
They can summarize data from a range of sources, and empower employees to automate tasks, such as call transcription and data entry, allowing them to focus on enhancing the customer experience. The result is a better experience for customers, and a more engaged workforce with less churn due to reduced burnout and stress.
- Unlocking Omnichannel Opportunities
Today’s consumers expect organizations to be able to serve them across every channel with the same level of professionalism, context, and speed. However, building a fully omnichannel contact center can be difficult, as data and processes need to be aligned across various ecosystems.
AI tools can help optimize omnichannel interactions for companies. 8×8’s intelligent IVR, for instance, uses AI to allow companies to create highly customized self-service experiences across channels, and ensures agents can access context throughout conversations.
AI can even address the complexities of managing certain channels. For instance, generative AI can make it easier to monitor email inboxes and social channels, and respond to customer queries rapidly.
- Improving Security and Compliance
Although there are security and compliance concerns to address when implementing AI into a contact center, intelligent tools can also help to protect businesses and their customers. AI tools integrated into a comprehensive contact center solution can improve user authentication processes, using biometrics to identify callers in an instant.
The right AI solutions can enable companies to monitor compliance and adherence to scripts, reducing the risk of legal issues when employees fail to mention they’re recording or call, or ask for consent to share information. AI solutions can even assess networks and conversations in real-time, looking for evidence of security issues.
- Boosting Analytics and Insights
Finally, one of the biggest benefits of AI in the contact center is that it allows companies to process and evaluate huge volumes of data with incredible speed. Combining cutting-edge artificial intelligence and call analytics tools ensures companies can make better decisions – drawing insights from every interaction – across multiple channels.
Companies can use advanced models to draw in-depth information from spoken words, making it easier for them to identify CSAT scores based on customer sentiment. They can also leverage modern AI tools to surface data and metrics for employees in real time, helping them to understand their performance and adapt to changing circumstances.
The resulting data gives companies certainty on why customers are calling. This enables them to proactively service customers – resulting in higher satisfaction and loyalty.
AI Remains Crucial to the Contact Center
Although AI can be expensive to implement and does present issues with security and compliance in some settings, it remains a transformative tool for the contact center. As advancements in conversational AI, generative AI, machine learning and NLP continue, contact centers cannot afford to miss out on the opportunities these technologies deliver.
With the right blend of human expertise and AI technology, businesses of all sizes will be able to boost their performance, enhance customer experiences, and reduce long-term costs. Adopting AI is not about outpacing the competition, it’s about meeting the growing expectations of the customers of today and tomorrow.
