Today’s customers want more than simple transactions; they want to develop lasting relationships with the brands they prefer. To accomplish this, every interaction a consumer has with your brand should directly enhance their experiences and build a better, stronger relationship.
Traditional engagement methods, such as phone calls and in-person interactions, can support this effort. But, with growing expectations and an ever-increasing number of customer engagements, brands need better ways to create seamless customer experiences. And only artificial intelligence (AI) can deliver this level of engagement.
Enterprises that blend AI with humans improved CSAT (61%), operational efficiency (68%) and agent productivity (66%).
Forrester
Good customer experiences, whether powered by AI or not, begin with your employees. Any obstacle that prevents them from helping a customer, such as siloed data or complicated routing, directly affects the customer experience. What’s more, it can lead to frustrated, unengaged employees who are unwilling or unable to provide the best possible service.
AI can manage the heavy lifting of sifting through customer needs, executing basic tasks, providing real-time information and more. This equips employees to perform their jobs faster and more confidently.
AI affects the customer experience from the very first moment of brand discovery, unifying data from every channel a consumer uses to interact with you. Then it can apply these insights across the entirety of the customer lifecycle to predict customer behaviours, inform agents and orchestrate experiences.
This powerful capability makes customers’ and agents’ lives easier and across every interaction, increases the likelihood that customers will choose your brand again.
AI adds power to high-performing contact centres. As a cross-channel, cross-functional capability, AI can impact your existing strategies and improve your customer experience in the following ways.
Predictive engagement
When a prospect or customer is on your site, targeting them with the right information at the right moment can directly increase their engagement with your brand. Without AI, predicting a customer’s interests is a monumental undertaking for even the most talented digital teams. AI-enabled predictive engagement capabilities let you assess known customer information and behaviours in real time. With this information, you can predict the right moment to engage with a customer. What’s more, you can even identify the right resource to deliver that engagement and which actions to take to improve the overall experience.
Chatbots and voicebots
Customers try to connect with your brand in various ways. No matter the channel, they expect to receive service that’s focused, efficient and tailored to their personal needs. AI-powered chatbots and voicebots can streamline customer journeys. By providing a conversational experience, automating basic customer requests and directing customers in the right direction, chatbots and voicebots can directly enhance the overall customer experience.
Employee performance
Sometimes improving your customer experience is as simple as having the right people in the right positions at the right time. With AI, you can analyze every speech and text interaction with customers to identify agent skills, knowledge and behaviours. Then you can apply this information to build employee profiles that ensure every customer interaction and situation is routed to the right agent. Additionally, you can use these insights to identify top performers and coaching opportunities.
Forecasting and scheduling
Call volume and customer demand can change at a moment’s notice. But with the right AI-powered forecasting and scheduling capabilities, you can scale to meet fluctuating demand. With the right skill sets and support available, employee satisfaction and ability to execute their roles will increase. With happy agents, you can rest assured that the support your customers receive will improve.
Predictive routing
Long wait times, complicated routing procedures and repetitive questions can all have a negative effect on the customer experience. Make the best use of your customers’ time by getting them to the right agent or resource as quickly and efficiently as possible. Predictive routing capabilities can identify a customer’s need and intelligently direct the customer to the right agent to achieve expected outcomes.
Agent assistance
Providing exemplary customer experiences requires having access to the right information in the right moment. Using AI technologies to monitor conversations between agents and consumers lets you proactively provide real-time insights, recommendations and next-best actions, as needed. With this in-the-moment support, agents can provide better service and reach customer resolutions faster.
Interaction analytics
Every interaction a customer has with your brand is an opportunity to learn and grow. By analysing recorded conversations for key events and language, you can identify consumer trends, agent performance, sales opportunities and more. You then can turn these insights into actionable items that will improve both customer and employee experiences and, ultimately, drive your bottom line.