You’ve likely seen countless articles about moving contact centers to the cloud. And you might be wondering, “Will this one offer anything new?”
Stick around, and I’ll show you why it’s worth your time.
The cloud era is evolving with the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), which thrives on data and excels in cloud environments. AI is driving automation, helping businesses innovate and modernize their customer experience strategy.
If you manage a contact center, you understand the importance of balancing cost, efficiency, and customer satisfaction. AI makes this balance achievable.
Why cloud is THE only way forward
There’s more to investing in cloud and AI than meets the eye. First, if you’re running on legacy on-premises technology, you simply can’t innovate. You can try, but it will be painful, expensive, IT resource intensive, and slow – very slow.
When we think about innovation, AI is usually the first technology that comes to mind. But AI requires data and leveraging data becomes almost impossible with an on-premises system because it lacks the flexibility to integrate data from different sources. It’s unable to efficiently handle data aggregation, analysis, and prediction – all of which are crucial to a successful AI strategy.
On the other hand, AI is built into just about every piece of cloud software today, including CCaaS or contact center-as-a-service.
Secondly, you can’t digitize. Digital transformation isn’t just a buzzword – it’s a necessity in today’s world and another key reason why businesses are investing in the cloud. Consumers are tech-savvy, and they expect companies to take a digital-first approach to customer experience (CX). Research by McKinsey & Company revealed that more than half of customers engage with three to five channels during each journey they take toward making a purchase or resolving a request. The challenge for contact centers lies in providing a set of seamlessly integrated digital channels that meet the needs of your most important revenue-generating, value-generating customer requests.
Which brings me to my third point. How do you know what your customers want, and which interactions are your most profitable ones? The answer is AI-driven data insights.
When combined with AI, data analytics provides a powerful tool to enhance how contact centers engage with their customers proactively and preemptively. AI can reveal insights hidden within your data, providing a deeper understanding of your customers and allowing you to optimize operations and resources for maximum efficiency.
AI and cloud – a match made for innovation
AI’s rapid development is deeply tied to the cloud, and Generative AI (GenAI) is further amplifying its relevance and importance. A cloud platform is truly optimal for providing the computing power, speed, scalability, and data storage necessary for advanced AI technologies to thrive. According to Aberdeen Research, 80% of companies are turning to AI to harness the potential of their existing data to drive enhanced customer experiences and impactful business outcomes.
AI enables businesses to engage with customers before they even reach out by predicting their needs and proactively delivering information, offering solutions, or helping resolve issues ahead of time.
Nowhere is customer data more accessible than in the contact center. AI and data are being used to create proactive communications outreach and hyper-personalized customer experiences that drive repeat business and increase brand loyalty. Let me give you a few examples.
Scenario 1: Unlock your edge with insights
Ever wonder how to quickly discover what your customers are talking about when they engage with your call center? The solution is AI. By analyzing customer conversations, AI can identify recurring themes and provide your business with valuable insights that help improve customer experiences, enhance agent training, and uncover potential product or process issues. For example, if your contact center receives an unusually high volume of inquiries about a particular product, this trend alerts your teams that there might be market shifts or issues with your website or virtual agent.
Research by Gitnux indicates that 84% of executives report that AI will enable them to obtain or sustain a competitive advantage. Acting on these insights allows you to make targeted improvements that can not only reduce call volume, increase sales, and lower customer effort, but can also boost your competitive advantage.
Scenario 2: Laser-focused routing – every time
When a customer or prospect is reaching your contact center, it’s crucial to get it right the first time. Meaning, you need to route them to the right resource that is most qualified to help them in the quickest, most efficient way. Based on what channel the customer is using, be it chat, email, or voice, and the reason for their query, AI can determine which inquiries can be handled by a virtual agent and which ones will be longer and more complex in nature and likely require assistance from a customer service agent.
AI can also analyze customer history, previous buying patterns, and behavior to predict future behaviors and their potential lifetime value. With this insight, AI can route your customers to specific teams or customer service agents with the right skills, delivering a “just in time” personalized experience and driving a more predictable, profitable business outcome.
Scenario 3: Increase customer satisfaction – before it’s too late
When it comes to CSAT scores, we understand the importance of having insights into both your highest and lowest ratings to continuously improve and prevent customer churn. That’s why we’ve developed automatic customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores.
Leveraging our native AI capabilities, this feature predicts post-interaction CSAT scores, allowing contact centers to tap into data from every interaction instead of just the typical 3-10% response rate from post-interaction surveys.
This advanced capability within Webex Contact Center analyzes call recordings and other crucial interaction elements like sentiment, tone of voice, hold times, and transcripts – factors often overlooked by survey responses, and provides valuable information about how your customers feel about your brand. These insights empower your business to understand both what’s working and what’s not, enabling you to take proactive steps to enhance the customer experience.
The absence of automation can impact agent wellbeing
Let’s circle back to my earlier point about automation. Automation leads to increased efficiency and productivity levels. The push for greater efficiency is yet another reason businesses are investing in cloud and AI.
According to research by Gitnux, contact center agents spend 37% of their time doing unproductive work, which leads to burnout. Indeed, agents spend a great deal of their time performing repetitive and time-consuming tasks while juggling various systems and applications before, during, and after customer interactions, which, if not automated, can be challenging.
AI can generate automated wrap-up summaries that include suggested follow-up actions and wrap-up codes for each customer interaction. This saves time for agents while providing the business with a clearer picture of interaction data
AI can also use data to proactively minimize agent stress levels. Imagine having AI automatically schedule breaks when it detects potential stress for agents. For instance, if an agent has handled multiple back-to-back lengthy calls with upset customers, AI can re-route upcoming calls to other agents or switch the stressed agent to a less demanding digital channel, minimizing burnout and allowing the agent some time to reset.
Here’s what you just learned in 5 minutes
AI innovation is best leveraged with modern cloud deployments. As senior Forbes contributor Emil Sayegh puts it: “The cloud provides us with a canvas of scalability, adaptability, and cost-efficiency, and serves as a foundation upon which the full gamut of AI’s capabilities can flourish.”
Don’t let the limitations of your legacy on-premises contact center technology determine the quality, completeness, and ease of experiences you deliver to customers or employees.
If you’re ready to prioritize cloud transformation and future-proof your contact center, explore Webex Contact Center – the AI-powered customer experience platform for today and tomorrow.
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