Mar 26, 2021

It’s not about “just” Service, it’s about experiences: Impress your customers with AI and Automation

Research shows 57% of customers will increase their spending with a brand they feel “connected” to. This means more than “just” customer service. It means creating meaningful service experiences based on a deep understanding of who customers are: what they like, dislike, how they’re feeling in real-time, why they do what they do, and what you anticipate they’ll do next. Whether you have a handful, hundreds, or thousands of employees in your customer service operation, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and automation are powerful technologies that your organization should be actively considering.

Here’s what you’ll gain by putting the right AI and automation tools in place…

A deeper understanding of your customers based on data and speech analytics.

See exactly what a customer wants, how they feel, and what actions they’re likely to take - all based on key words or phrases spoken in conversation. Speech analytics can also help you identify shining moments for your employees (or conversely, opportunities for improvement) based on the words or phrases they speak during voice interactions.

Consider an agent (Tonya) who is on a call with Arthur, a customer of a few years. AI-powered speech analytics displays to Tonya in real-time via her agent desktop that Arthur is becoming increasingly frustrated: his speech stammers, he’s using more assertive words, and he has started to interrupt the conversation. With this data, she can see, hear, and understand how Arthur is processing his experience, enabling her to make high-quality decisions in the context of the service experience to keep him happy (versus Arthur hanging up the phone, frustrated, or worse, and blasting Tonya on his post-call satisfaction survey).

Better customer loyalty and brand relationships with AI-powered predictive analytics.

Machine learning and predictive analysis give you the ability to detect valuable behavioral patterns in your customers. Let’s say Arthur has interacted with your customer support team a handful of times over the last few months. Your business has been able to learn through data analytics that he has shorter and usually more successful interactions with support over the phone in contrast to other channels like chatbots; that he prefers to call on Thursday nights; and that he needed help with a problem last month which led to him threatening to cancel his service with you. When Arthur calls about another perceived problem, predictive behavioral analytics seamlessly display these patterns to the employee set to service Arthur. You can even program the technology to suggest targeted discounts and promotions that will appease Arthur to build his loyalty.   

Faster issue resolution and higher customer satisfaction with AI-powered smart routing.  

Smart routing – or intelligent routing – is AI’s way of replacing legacy call queue systems to pair a customer directly with an employee that is best suited to address his or her needs. This can be an agent within your contact center or anyone else within your organization, regardless of what department they work in or where they are located. This match can be based on almost anything: location, demographics, employee expertise/skills, a customer’s personality, their history with your organization, or any other custom field you create.

Let’s stick with our customer, Arthur. Your data analysis shows that he is an older man who can be longwinded, has difficulty hearing, and often needs things pronounced several times. With this information, your routing system automatically pairs him with Darla – known for her patience and high success rate with challenging customer calls. They are both native English speakers with the same N.Y.-based accent, which makes understanding Darla a pleasant, easy experience for Arthur.

Higher productivity, fewer escalations, and more satisfied and empowered employees with AI Agent Assist.

Agent Assist is an AI-based contact center tool that empowers customer service employees with intelligent guidance in real-time, recommending the next best action to help quickly resolve any customer issue. Let’s look at Arthur and Darla: as the two talk, Agent Assist can act as Darla’s assistant that listens to Arthur’s speech patterns, analyzes his tone and conversation content, and then prompts Darla with phrases and actions to take that will help her deliver effortless, memorable, and personalized service. Darla does not need to bring in a supervisor or engage any other team members to solve Arthur’s issue as Agent Assist proactively provides her with information to make sure Arthur feels as though he’s getting a unique and satisfying experience.

Not sure where to start? Servion is a consultative, end-to-end technology specialist ready to help your business integrate AI and automation to deliver unmatched customer experiences (CX). Reach out for a free consulting session with our CX Specialists.