Over the years, the fields of application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) have become vaster and vaster. Different sectors, different channels, different challenges… AI does not seem to back down from anything. But what added value does it bring, in concrete terms, to your customer relationship management? And what are the levers that can be used today?
Challenge
Understand the scope of AI applications
Artificial intelligence is a concept that can seem as exciting as it is destabilizing because it encompasses a multitude of disciplines and techniques that are sometimes difficult to understand: Machine Learning, Automatic Language Processing, Automation, Business Intelligence… Where do you start when you are new to the subject? Many companies are convinced of the benefits of integrating AI into their sales strategy or customer relationship management. However, they need to understand which solutions can be operational right now and, above all, to identify those that can really bring value to their business, beyond mere fads or buzz words.
Methodology
Identify where AI can help you improve customer relations
When it comes to customer relations, the first application that comes to mind is often the chatbot. It is the most deployed today, but it is in fact only one application among many others. Accelerate processing times, reduce costs, improve the quality of responses… The possibilities offered by artificial intelligence are numerous. After listening to and studying the needs of your customers, it is up to you to identify the current pain points, define your priority objectives and estimate the relevance of a particular solution:
1. Listening to clients
The first step of the methodology is crucial since it is the one on which all the others will depend. Before putting anything in place, the company must listen to the needs and
expectations of its customers to identify the areas to focus on first. For this, it can already rely on AI to help it analyze the mass of data at its disposal to build real customer intelligence.
2. Accelerate response and processing times
Get answers in record time? This is what artificial intelligence integrated into self-care tools (chatbot, dynamic FAQ, IVR…) promises. Faster, more insightful, fully capable of handling issues regularly encountered by customers… AI reduces the time usually needed to provide answers. According to a study conducted by PwC, more than 60% of consumers would be convinced of the valuable help of such a solution. They believe that AI can provide the right answers, faster. All advantages, in short! Not to mention the fact that artificial intelligence such as virtual assistants or chatbots are available 24/7. Faster transactions = more satisfied customers.
3. Improve the quality of answers
In addition to saving processing time, AI also has the advantage of providing more accurate answers. According to 70% of business leaders (source PwC), humans are more fallible than machines… And therefore, more likely to provide incorrect answers! However, a customer service department must be irreproachable and deliver clear, precise, and accurate answers. By understanding the customer’s profile, AI can provide a fully adapted answer and reduce the customer’s effort. In the context of an interaction with an advisor, it can also act in support of the agent to help him find a more relevant answer by proposing different options.
4. Offload agents and reduce costs
The self-care we have already mentioned allows agents to take full responsibility for low value-added tasks. Thanks to the automation of routine tasks, AI helps them increase their productivity even more and fully concentrate on high value-added or more complex tasks. Their mission within the contact center is enhanced, as is their usefulness. With a better allocation of time, the quality of customer service is increased.
5. Keeping the place of the human being while pooling forces
The human and the machine are complementary. It is not a question of favoring one solution over another… but rather of merging the two! By adding the skills of humans to those of AI, productivity, quality, and responsiveness are all the better. Moreover, 80% of customer relationship decision-makers think that AI is much more efficient when it consists in increasing the human being, rather than replacing it entirely (source Zdnet). With bots in charge of handling simpler requests and agents available to handle more complex cases, customers find the perfect balance between autonomy and support
6. Be part of a continuous improvement process
Finally, in the same way, that we evaluate the performance of human agents, we must constantly seek to improve the performance of technologies using AI. In the case of a chatbot or a dynamic FAQ, for example, you must have the means to identify the cases where the tool is faulty in order to improve its ability to understand and/or improve the relevance of the answers.
Key figures
- 29% of agent tasks can be automated with technology (source GoBoomTown).
- 54% of business leaders say AI solutions have had a positive impact on productivity (source PWC).
- 63% of contact center managers say the use of chatbots and virtual assistants is valuable in resolving customer issues (source BusinessWire).
How do Enghouse solutions help you?
Today, Enghouse uses artificial intelligence in all its solutions and helps you improve customer relations in three major areas.
Automated conversations
Whether they take the form of a dynamic FAQ, a chatbot, or an IVR, our self-care solutions allow your customers to obtain information themselves, without human intervention. This reduces response times and increases customer satisfaction while offloading other channels and reducing costs.
Augmented conversations
AI takes the form of a real-time coach to improve the quality of the conversation. It analyzes the data provided by the customer to guide the agents towards the best response to provide. This can take various forms: linguistic routing to direct requests to the right agent, automatic suggestions for answers, provision of a knowledge base that the agent accesses by asking questions in natural language, etc.
Conversation analysis
Our voice of the customer analysis solution allows you to analyze the verbatims of your customers on all channels (surveys, emails, chat, social networks…) and for all paths, whether physical or digital, to understand their expectations, deep motivations, and emotions on the one hand and to analyze the quality of service of your contact center on the other hand. This allows you not only to know what your customers are saying but also to understand why they are talking about this or that subject and to explain your various satisfaction scores (NPS, CSAT, etc.). Finally, our Quality Monitoring solutions also allow you to monitor in real-time the quality of your agents’ interactions with your customers.
What about the future?
Situations involving AI mechanisms are becoming more and more common. And this is only the beginning! The increase in computing power and the improvement of machine learning algorithms
will multiply the possibilities offered. It is predicted that by 2025, AI will be present in 95% of customer interactions (Source: Servion Global Solutions)
The still-nascent field of the voice of customer analysis will also grow considerably under the impetus of AI advances. The reason? According to a study by Aberdeen, companies that have integrated a VoC device have a 55% higher customer retention rate than other companies. Not to mention the savings made by analyzing the voice of the customer: nearly 23.6% less cost each year! One of the major challenges here will be to combine the structured data available (order history, demographic data, etc.) with unstructured data from the semantic analysis of conversations to predict and anticipate individual behavior. A real revolution in loyalty programs!
