Contact centers have been thriving grounds for innovation for some time now. At a time when customers are expecting a higher level of personalization, AI has emerged as a revolutionary force.

Today, 82% of customers expect an immediate problem resolution. Businesses can use AI-powered contact center solutions to pace with customers’ expectations and offer satisfying experiences.

In this blog post, we explore contact center AI, its benefits, and how you can use it. Let’s get started.

What is Contact Center AI?

Contact center AI (CCAI) is the use of artificial intelligence technologies to improve contact center operations. This includes machine learning, natural language processing, generative AI and more to enhance customer experience.

AI plays key role in:

  » Predicting customer needs

  » Identifying opportunities for self-service and automation

  » Allowing customers to serve agents better and faster

  » Streamlining interactions 

  » Providing real-time insights to help businesses meet customer expectations

Uses of AI in Contact Centers

Artificial intelligence helps businesses improve their contact center operations in several ways.

Here are some ways AI is transforming contact center operations:

AI-powered Call Routing

Contact centers can use AI to analyze customers’ requests, identify their intent and assign them to the appropriate agent or self-service interface.

This can help:

→ Reduce average handle time and hold time

→ Improve the first contact resolution rate

→ Optimize agent utilization rate and productivity

Self-service Options like IVR & Chatbots

Contact centers can use artificial intelligence to offer customers self-service options like IVR and chatbots. The AI assistants can provide instant answers to general queries without keeping customers on hold, allowing agents to focus on more complex queries.

This helps:

→ Offer instant responses to customers

→ Reduce operational costs through minimum human intervention

→ Improve agents’ productivity by focusing only on complex conversations

→ Provide round-the-clock support by using pre-recorded responses to common questions. 

→ Prioritize calls from high-value customers and route callers to specific agents or departments based on their area codes

→ Improve first contact resolution and other important call center metrics and key performance indicators

AI-based Reporting & Analytics

Contact center AI analytics can enhance call monitoring and provide detailed insights, facilitating agent training. This granular understanding enables managers to address pain points and allocate resources judiciously and proactively.

Here are some ways AI can help with quality control:

» Transcribe, process, and analyze calls to review interactions and identify areas for improvement

» Find trends and common issues by assessing call recordings in bulk

» Perform customer sentiment analysis to understand how a customer reacts to an interaction

For example, Exotel’s sentiment analysis powered by exoMind, is a powerful tool that can analyze chat summaries and categorize sentiments as positive, neutral, or negative. This can help improve customer support by understanding customer emotions.

AI Agent Assist

Contact center agents resolve queries faster with the help of AI agent assist feature. It processes the conversations in real-time and suggests solution recommendations to the agent in real-time.

AI agent assist can:

» Make it easy for agents to find answers to common queries

» Retrieve and show customer information from the database

» Automatically summarize interactions with the customers

What are the Benefits of Using AI in Contact Centers?

Enhanced Customer Experience

AI in contact centers can help improve the end-customer experience in a number of ways. This includes faster query resolutions, 24×7 support, and personalized experience.

Here’s how:

→ Reduced wait times – AI can analyze customer queries and route them to the most skilled agent or department, ensuring customers are connected with the right person quickly. It can also prioritize calls based on several factors, including the nature of the issue.

→ Personalized experience – Agents can get an overview of the customer through AI-powered summaries of their past interactions. This can help them deliver more personalized service and recommendations.

→ 24×7 support – Chatbots and self-service options like IVR are available round the clock to help customers. They help customers solve common queries and submit requests for human support during off-times.

Operations Scaling

Contact center AI can support businesses’ scale by automating conversations and improving agent’s efficiency. It can forecast call volumes, identify trends, and optimize staffing levels with predictive analytics.

AI-powered chatbots and solutions can also manage and handle routine inquiries efficiently and automate responses. Businesses can develop self-service portals, knowledge bases, and interactive voice responses (IVR) with the help of AI and scale their contact center operations.

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Improved Agent Engagement

Contact center AI can reduce an agent’s monotonous and time-consuming tasks, such as answering common queries through chatbots. This ensures agents can focus on more important and complex conversations requiring human interference.

Here are some ways AI can help contact center agents to work more efficiently:

» Analyze customer data and identify potential problems before they escalate through predictive AI

» Offer personalized training and learning experiences to contact center agents

» Translate languages in real-time during customer conversations to offer multi-lingual support

» Generate call summaries and transcripts, providing agents with quick access to relevant information

Improved Performance

Contact center AI can help you improve across all your key metrics. With the power to analyze conversations at scale, you can extract historical trends to develop your customer experience strategy.

With AI, you can :

→ Deploy call routing to let the best agents handle specific queries

→ Prioritize tasks by  tracking interactions and recording customer histories

→ Get instant insights into customer sentiment and call performance, enabling proactive management and coaching

→ Predict call volumes so that there are enough agents available during peak times and vice versa

Let’s have a look at the top trends that are shaping customer service:

1. Workflow Automation is Driving Omnichannel Approaches

McKinsey states, “Customers want an always-on, personalized, omnichannel experience.” The customers expect interactions with agents to seamlessly switch between support channels such as calls, social media messaging, email, and live chat.

Contact center AI automation trends, such as robotic process automation (RPA), can automate repetitive tasks to reduce an agent’s time handling such tasks such as:

⇒ Data entry and management – Analyze customer interactions and extract relevant information to input this data into appropriate systems automatically

⇒ Routine entry and management – Handle routine tasks such as updating customer records, processing transactions, and generating reports

⇒ AI-powered decision making- Make decisions based on data patterns, such as identifying the priority of customer queries

For example, businesses can deploy AI-powered chatbots for easy customer onboarding. Let’s say a customer wants to create a new account. Here, an AI-powered chatbot can collect the required information to register the customer and create an account for them through the conversation.

2. Self-service CX and Chatbots

According to Hubspot research, 90% of customers want an “immediate” response to a customer service question. This is where AI-powered service options like chatbots can help.

Including chatbots doesn’t mean the conversation has to be boring and robotic. It can be more like customers conversing with friends, a back-and-forth exchange. AI chatbots can also remember past context when sharing customer advice or solutions.

Self-service options also feature knowledge bases, FAQs, and automated troubleshooting guides that are available around the clock. This means customers can access these resources anytime and anywhere, ensuring continuous support.

3. Innovative IVR is Transforming Call Center Operations

The traditional IVRs could not be programmed to recognize extra words or unclear queries. AI has enhanced this technology through innovative IVR that can identify and understand everyday speech easily.

Instead of keypad-based navigation menus, the AI-based IVRs are voice-based that can understand customers’ everyday speech patterns. Intelligent or conversational IVRs analyze and process inputs using natural language processing and protective response in real-time.

4. Real-time Conversational Analytics on Rise

Real-time conversational AI analytics is a popular trend that enables contact centers to extract data from text and voice conversations between customers and agents/chatbots and discover behavioral patterns.

It uses these technologies:

» Predictive analytics –  To identify problems and take action before they happen

» Voice analytics – To analyze the voice conversations and understand parameters such as the agent’s tone, pitch, stress, and rhythm

» Speech analytics – To identify key phrases and words used by the customer and agent during the conversation

» Sentiment analytics – To determine the tone of a conversation between an agent and  a customer

How to Choose a Contact Center AI Platform?

Choosing the right contact center AI platform involves identifying your business needs and goals. This includes looking for the required features, integrating existing systems, and establishing pricing models.

Here’s how you can choose the right platform for your AI contact center:

1. Check for Compatibility & Integration with Existing Stack

The contact center AI should integrate seamlessly with your current tech stack. This minimizes disruptions while ensuring operations run smoothly.

Here are some common integrations for contact centers:

⇒ CRM tool integration – It helps agents to have access to all customer data, past interactions, and previous issues or resolutions to offer more personalized service and faster resolutions

⇒ Knowledge base integration – It allows agents to quickly search for information needed to solve customer queries and deliver consistent responses

⇒ Social media integration – It helps contact centers manage customer interactions across various social media platforms such as Facebook, X, and Instagram

⇒ Email integration – It helps agents manage and respond to customer emails directly from the contact center interface, ensuring timely responses

2. Consider Data Security & Privacy

The software should comply with industry standards and privacy regulations like GDPR.

The contact center AI solution should ensure all data protection measures are in place, including encryption and regular security audits. It should comply with relevant laws and regulations to avoid legal proceedings.

Data security and privacy are essential if you are operating in multiple regions with various legal requirements.

Transform the way you engage with your customers

3. Search for Customer Reviews & Testimonials

Find out what other users think about the software to gain valuable insights into the software’s strengths and weaknesses. This will help you get an honest perspective on whether the solution is right for your business or not.

You can get reviews and feedback from:

⇒ Forums and review sites like G2 and Capterra to get honest opinions about the software. Look for consistent patterns in feedback for both positive and negative reviews.

Dig into case studies from vendors to evaluate how other businesses have utilized and benefitted from their software

4. Choose a Solution That Can Scale & Customize

Your business is ever-growing, and so should your software. Choose easily scalable software to accommodate increased customer interactions and support more agents. If the solution is scalable, it will remain effective regardless of the volume of interactions.

Look for contact center software that offers a high degree of customization. It should allow you to create custom reports and integrate niche tools as needed.

Drive Exemplary Contact Center Results with Exotel

Customers are increasingly impatient and reach out for the simplest issues, expecting immediate solutions.

That’s when contact center AI solutions like Exotel transform and accelerate how you deliver services and solutions. They help you deliver personalized support around the clock with inbuilt assistance from contact center AI.

Some of its features include:

» Smart IVR to drive tailored interaction with customizable flows with messages

» Reports and dashboards to help you stay up-to-date with your contact center performance

» Automation call distribution that can prioritize high-value customers and transfer the calls to the most skilled agents

» Live monitoring to resolve issues quickly and take proactive resolutions

Get started to discover how Exotel can help your contact center operations.

FAQs

1. What Type of Customer Service Interaction Needs AI Automation?

Automation can be helpful to route a customer to the right agent or queue. It can also help offer self-service options, allowing agents to focus on more complex issues.

2. Can AI Help Reduce Operational Costs in Contact Centers?

Yes, AI can help reduce operational costs by minimizing the need for a large workforce, automating routine tasks, and optimizing resource allocation.

3. How can Contact Center AI Improve Service?

Contact center AI can improve service by offering 24×7 support, faster responses, consistent interactions, and data-driven insights, as well as enhancing customer experience and operational efficiency.

Shambhavi Sinha

Shambhavi Sinha is an SEO expert at Exotel with a passion for writing about technology. With a keen interest in the latest trends in contact centers and artificial intelligence, Shambhavi aims to empower users by sharing insightful and up-to-date knowledge. Her expertise in SEO and her dedication to educating her audience make her a valuable resource for anyone looking to stay informed about the evolving landscape of tech in customer service and beyond.

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