Contact centers are in the midst of a profound transformation. The introduction of artificial intelligence created a major shift in how contact centers operate. The transformation began with conversational AI - yielding shorter wait times for customers, more accurate answers to their queries, and fewer friction points in customer service interactions, to name just a few.
But even at the onset of conversational AI's integration into contact centers, we knew that wouldn't be the final word. With the advent of generative AI, reality is starting to align with our vision of a modern customer contact center.
In this post, we're going to look at how conversational and generative AI are transforming the contact center experience and how that transformation essentially defines what a modern contact center is.
Next Generation Knowledge Management and Delivery
From the get-go, let's be clear. A modern contact center is one in which conversational and generative AI models answer most customer queries. The merging of these two facets of AI redefines customer service for both customers and brands. And the crux of the transformation lies in knowledge management and delivery - that's the reason contact centers exist in the first place.
By integrating conversational and generative AI into your contact center operations, you can automate your organization's knowledge management and have your AI models do much more than provide boilerplate answers to common questions.
Using AI for knowledge management and automation enables organizations to provide answers to more complex and personal customer queries. Your AI model can ingest your FAQs, user guides, knowledge bases, etc. - you essentially set the limits to its knowledge. And it will provide those answers across all customer contact support teams with the same speed and efficacy. Another tangible benefit is that as your organization grows to meet rising call volumes, AI can speed up both the training and onboarding of your customer service agents.
It takes consistent and reliable information to provide customers with shorter interactions and accurate resolutions. Using conversational and generative AI to predict and deliver information automatically means that live agents don't need to rummage through knowledge bases or support articles, resulting in a smooth and frictionless customer experience.
Other benefits include enhanced customer and agent satisfaction, improved call resolution rates, and reduced operational costs.
Portraying the Modern Contact Center
So how exactly does AI achieve the above? Through a mix of its impressive capabilities. Let’s look at a few.
Predictive Call Routing - This is more than simply having the tech route the call to a particular department within the organization. It matches the customer to a specific agent it deems in the best position to handle the query based on their expertise, personality, communication style, and call history. This has the double advantage of providing a very personal experience to the customer and leading to a faster, tailored resolution of the issue.
Emotional Intelligence - Awareness of your customer's emotional state invariably leads to better outcomes - that just makes sense. An AI model can analyze the tone and cadence of your customers' queries to detect their moods. Not only that, but it can also keep track of things like the number of times a support agent interrupts the customer as well as their cadence and tone of voice. It can then provide live feedback to the agent, providing them insights into the caller's emotional state as the call proceeds.
AI-driven Personalized Recommendations - There are two ways AI models can provide personalized recommendations:
- Directly to the client
- To the client through the support rep
In either case, the AI model does this by mastering the company's knowledge bases and analyzing customer information, past purchases, previous support calls, etc. From those sources, it can determine whether to attempt to upsell the customer or provide them with a rebate on a product or service, for example. Both can lead to customer engagement and business growth.
Call/Customer Analytics - Call analytics are tied to all of the above points. Because AI measures customer tone, personality, and sentiment, it can provide more customer analytics that are richer in detail and granularity than previous-generation analytics algorithms.
Contact Center Modernization at VOICE & AI
VUX World - Kane Simms
Contact Center Modernization is a hot topic right now. So, of course, it will be discussed in-depth at Modev's upcoming VOICE & AI, held September 5th through the 7th, at the Washington Hilton in Washington, DC.
One talk we're sure you won't want to miss will be with VUX World CEO Kane Simms. Kane will connect the dots between AI, contact centers, and automation. His presentation will enable attendees to understand the ins and outs of using AI for knowledge management and delivery within the context of customer contact centers. He'll also provide an overview of the best ways to introduce AI into current contact center workflows while providing real-world examples cherry-picked from his many years within the field.
We're proud of our ongoing partnership with VUX World, and we're sure you'll come away from this talk with an understanding of just why that is.
Using Large Language Models and Generative AI to Drive Business Outcomes
Arpita Bhowmick is Sr. Director of Global Omnichannel Contact Center Products & Head of Conversational AI at Moderna, so she knows all about digital transformation and the deployment of AI in contact centers. She’ll be joined by Chris Morgan Brow, Principal Consultant, Natural Language AI at Amazon Web Services, and John Kneafsy, Principal Product Manager, Chat & Chatbots at ADP, to discuss the ins and outs of implementing large language models and generative AI in an enterprise setting and provide insights on how to ensure it drives growth.
Drawing upon their vast experience with conversational and generative AI in contact centers, Apita and her co-speakers will explain where organizations should start when they integrate the tech into their customer-facing applications. They will also provide best practices for successful integrations that provide safe and meaningful outcomes while driving growth.
If you’re part of an organization that’s ready to take the AI plunge, you’ll want to be in the audience for this one. Their talk is bound to be as practical and insightful as it is eye-opening.
Level Up Your Contact Center with LLMs
Ryan Bales, Architect, Conversation Intelligence at Invoca, has been working with large language models for a long time. He’s worked with LLMs of all shapes and sizes, both proprietary and open source, and he knows how to use the tech to take contact centers to the next level.
In his hands-on talk, Ryan will discuss leveraging LLMs to gather real-time insights from agents’ customer interactions as they unfold. He’ll also detail some original ways organizations can use those insights to improve quality and efficacy throughout their teams’ workflows.
Ryan’s talk will also be peppered with meaningful tips and tricks he learned from his vast experience working with and managing LLMs in a contact center setting.
AI Agents and Voice: Advancing Customer Service to 5 Stars
Hardy Myers, Senior Vice President, Strategy at Cognigy, believes that the recent advancements in conversational and generative AI mean we should consider canned responses to common queries as an artifact from AI's past. We're in the era of AI-based automation, and customer service needs to follow that trend.
Conversational and generative AI's convergence will push customer service's digital transformation over the edge, redefining agents' roles while raising call centers' quality standards in the process.
Hardy's talk will also explain how the voice experiences of tomorrow will be borne out of the synergy between conversational and generative AI while creating a multi-billion-dollar market set to unfold over the next five years.
Wrapping Up
Modev has consistently highlighted the industry's latest and most cutting-edge trends - and this year's conference is no different in that regard. We've got an extraordinary roster of talented speakers - each with something unique to share. We hope to see you September 5th through the 7th at the Washington Hilton in Washington, DC, for VOICE & AI. You can register today at https://www.voiceand.ai/.
About Modev
Modev believes that markets are made and thus focuses on bringing together the right ingredients to accelerate market growth. Modev has been instrumental in the growth of mobile applications, cloud, and generative AI, and is exploring new markets such as climate tech. Founded in 2008 on the simple belief that human connection is vital in the era of digital transformation, Modev makes markets by bringing together high-profile key decision-makers, partners, and influencers. Today, Modev produces market-leading events such as VOICE & AI, ESG Tech Summit and the soon to be released Developers.AI series of hands-on training events. Modev staff, better known as "Modevators," include community building and transformation experts worldwide.
To learn more about Modev, and the breadth of events offered live and virtually, visit Modev's website and join Modev on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube.
