Customer service is one of the most important components of any business. This is especially true today amid concerns of COVID-19. Call centers are being overwhelmed as consumers strive to find a balance between social distancing and the need to address their concerns about products or services.
The need for great customer service is further highlighted by an Ameritas report showing that 24percent of satisfied customers will return two or more years after a positive experience. Seventy percent spend more with companies that offer great service, while 59 percent say they would switch to a new company if the current one didn't live up to expectations. Banks and other financial institutions are particularly vulnerable but can reap immense benefits by providing satisfactory results. A study by Bain & Company found that a small increase in customer retention (just 5 percent) by financial services firms increases profits by more than 25 percent.
That's valuable information, but it doesn't reveal < what consumers want from their customer service experiences. A Zendesk report revealed that speed is a key factor, with 89 percent of consumers stating that a quick response is important when choosing a brand. Another key finding: 65 percent expect customer service to be faster in 2020 than it was in 2015.
Call centers have not been terribly effective in this regard. As the number of customer inquiries increases, customers are often shuffled into the dreaded phone queue of poor music and long wait times. Hiring more staff alone will not cut it because call volumes will always fluctuate, and, as businesses grow, the number of inquiries will increase accordingly. But there is a technology, conversational artificial intelligence (AI), that can intervene. It has the power to assist call centers, work alongside staff, and reduce or eliminate those pesky queues.
Old Methods Come Up Short.
Many companies have implemented chatbots to cut costs and eliminate the pain points of customer service. But chatbots could actually do the opposite, annoying customers with pre-determined responses that fail to answer more than the simplest of questions or resolve the easiest of problems. That hasn't changed, not even after several years of refinements.
This is what sets conversational AI apart from chatbots. Conversational AI has evolved immensely, providing more than basic insights and is now capable of carrying on a conversation. Working either directly with customers or service representatives, conversational AI can help answer a broad spectrum of questions, solve a variety of problems, and even show empathy when necessary. And it can go a long way toward improving customer service and the overall customer experience.
According to the Zendesk report, 51 percent of customers won't even wait an hour before ditching one contact method for another. By that point, consumers are getting frustrated and might start to reevaluate their decision to do business with the firm.
IT company Unisys was aware of these risks when it began to search for a new call center solution. The firm had decided to forego a call-based interactive voice response (IVR) system, fearing that it would lead to lengthy wait times as customers queue up. Unisys ultimately chose a conversational AI solution to act as a digital associate. The digital colleague satisfied customers by providing a voice-based solution across all channels for its InteliServe platform. This resulted in a 32 percent decline in the number of calls sent to the human staff at the service desk, allowing the team to focus on more complex matters for higher-value customers.
There When You Need It
The benefits of conversational AI are not limited to one use case. It can also act as a whisper agent, assisting call center representatives in real time as they communicate with customers. Reps can talk to their digital colleagues to gain invaluable insights about callers and their previous inquiries. They can also draw on the whisper agent's knowledge to quickly answer customers' most pressing questions, preventing unnecessary delays and backups.
AAA of Southern California, part of the AAA auto club of insurers, has already adopted this technology. The company relies on a whisper agent to serve a staff of 300, allowing them to provide speedy responses. With intent successfully recognized in 97 percent of conversations, AAA's results are the perfect example of why AI is such an important technology.
Social distancing means that our on-demand world, where so many things can be obtained with the click of a button, has begun to slow down. But when the world goes back to normal, consumers will begin to gravitate toward the things that provide the greatest experiences. In the meantime, they still expect customer service to provide quick, reliable results.
Businesses can expand their customer support teams and increase their working hours to keep up, but it will be a losing battle as call volumes fluctuate. Insurers receive an abnormally high number of calls during and after a natural disaster, for example. In the past, they might have been expected to continuously employ enough representatives to satisfy demand during their busiest periods. But that is not smart or feasible, and call centers could still be overwhelmed as inquiries increase.
This is one of many reasons the human-digital workforce has become so critical. Both enterprises and their employees need the assistance that AI provides. Digital associates can take the lead and field questions for as many customers as necessary, whether receiving inquiries from five or 5,000. As a result, human staff can ignore most generic calls and instead focus on resolving customers' biggest and most complex problems.
Jonathan Crane is chief commercial officer at IPsoft.