Dec 01, 2022

Why AI and Omnichannel Are Today’s Top CX Investments

Customers are buying and the economy is growing, but is your contact center hurting? Contact rates are at an all-time high and agent staffing is at an all-time low. How do you handle more inquiries using fewer (or at the very least, the same) resources? This is where Artificial Intelligence (AI) and omnichannel come into the picture.

There’s a huge danger for companies that are not at least attempting to think about these solutions. Here’s what you need to know about these crucial CX investments:

Nearly 60% of businesses use AI in some form, particularly for customer service (contact center automation, customer service analytics, predictive service), and plan to increase investment over the next three years.

In the CX space, AI is the ability of software to make decisions and provide user-intuitive interfaces. The technology is proven to help agents handle twice as many calls per shift, improving speed to answer and customer abandonment rates. What this means for your company: lower operational costs, higher agent efficiency, and greater customer satisfaction.

How you can use AI, from beginner level to advanced:

• Provide immediate, on-demand assistance and self-service via a chat or voice bot (“In a few words, tell us why you’re calling. We’ll be able to understand what you’re saying”)
• Automate the tracking of customers’ issues and queries without the need for human intervention (this is helpful, especially for companies with large customer service teams, to save on costs and increase efficiency)
• Route calls faster and even personalize routing based on available data
• Have AI analyze interactions on any channel (voice or digital) to detect issues where intervention may be needed
• Deliver proactive service to minimize friction and better control service outcomes

Here’s what Servion’s clients have achieved with AI, supported by our expert team:

• 20% decrease in response and resolution time
• 25% reduction in wrong routing, getting customers to the right person the first time for higher First Call Resolution (FCR)
• 18% reduction in Average Handle Time (AHT)

AI runs on data, which every company has. The tricky part is incorporating tools that use AI and machine learning to achieve your CX goals. When AI doesn’t meet customers’ expectations, it stirs up fears. We wonder if businesses should use AI with us, or if we should do business with brands that use AI at all. AI has massive CX potential, but partnership is crucial for success.

Your customers want to engage with you in their preferred channel, seamlessly and effortlessly.

It’s true that most people prefer phone calls for getting in touch with an agent, but what about all the times when a human isn’t needed? Are you okay waiting on hold to handle something simple like a password reset or balance lookup? Some services like curbside pickup are only available via digital channels like text messaging or in-app messaging.

There are so many ways customers want to engage today – chat, text, social media, self-service – and the list is constantly growing. You need to give your customers these options and ensure they can seamlessly move across them without friction. 

Besides the clear customer demand, an omnichannel approach is massively beneficial for companies because it:

• Lowers costs by transitioning customers to self-service. For example, an incoming caller can opt for a digital or mobile self-service experience instead of choosing to wait on hold. When done right, this is a win-win: the customer gets answers faster and the company can deflect the call, thus saving time and money. One Servion customer reported a 500% increase in self-service utilization after we helped them implement an effective omnichannel approach.
• Provides greater customer insight. More interaction touchpoints create more data insights your organization can act on for upselling, proactive service, and overall better CX. For example, did you know that 93% of customers trust text messaging as a communication channel and text message open rates can be as high as 98%? Without an omnichannel approach, you’re missing out on a world of new CX opportunities.

This is the way of the future, and it’s best made possible with a cloud-based contact center (Contact Center-as-a-Service, or CCaaS). If you’re limited by your current solution and want to introduce new cloud-based platforms that add value to your current architecture, check out Servion. We have established partnerships with the world’s best CCaaS technology providers including Genesys, NICE, Cisco, Five9, and AWS with a proven track record of success.  

Join the hundreds of companies across the globe who have successfully deployed their contact centers with Servion.