How to Manage Agent Shortages and Improve CX with Virtual Assistants
Labor-skill shortages eat into a company’s ability to maintain regular business hours and deliver on customer needs. AI-enabled virtual assistants could help solve these challenges.
Companies that invest in new contact center technologies such as AI-enabled virtual assistants will be able to provide modern, high-quality, personalized service to customers despite labor shortages. Rebecca Jones, senior vice president and general manager of Mosaic from Intrado, discusses how virtual assistants can alleviate agent shortages and improve service levels.
Contact centers are transforming. Attrition is rising according to recent McKinsey reports, and costs to attract and retain talent are steep. At the same time, contact centers are dealing with a growing volume of requests, which rose by nearly 300%, as reported by Pindrop at the start of the pandemic. Relief may seem a long way off, as on a Fortune survey, 73% of CEOs indicate that labor and skills shortages will disrupt their business this year. Labor-skill shortages eat into a company’s ability to maintain regular business hours and deliver on customer needs. AI-enabled virtual assistants could help solve these challenges.
See More: What Is a Decision Tree? Algorithms, Template, Examples, and Best Practices
Four Advantages of Virtual Assistants
Let’s look at the four key benefits that AI-enabled virtual assistants can help your business unlock.
1.Manage Call Volumes
Contact centers currently have low volumes of agents who must manage a high volume of calls. These contact centers can handle the increased call volumes and bridge staffing gaps with the help of AI-powered contact center tools. One such tool is intelligent virtual assistants (IVAs), a communication tool that facilitates personalized responses to customers.
Virtual assistants are designed to handle low-level inquiries and direct higher-level inquiries to a human agent. For example, when a customer calls the contact center, an IVA can ask them what they need help with. The IVA can respond to open-ended prompts using natural language processing (NLP). The IVA uses NLP to recognize keywords and phrases to guide the customer to the next phase of their journey. And the IVA can do so without the support of a human agent.
During times of higher call volumes, an IVA can supplement human agents and make for decreased wait times, easier navigation, and quick and thorough answers, allowing agents to spend more time on the most complicated requests.
2. Personalize Customer Experience
Salesforce reported that a majority of customers – 66% – now expect businesses to understand their needs. AI technologies such as IVAs can deliver on this expectation. With AI solutions, contact centers can provide vital services that are perceptive to caller intent, language and sentiment – and not by simply what callers are saying but how they are saying it and in what context.
AI-enabled applications can help uncover common customer issues and offer insight into what’s causing problems for users. A business may implement IVAs to handle the most common inquiries and personalize real-time communications by employing this data.
3. Allow for Self Service and 24/7 Availability
Bizreport data reveals that 73% of customers prefer to solve issues independently. Using IVAs such as AI-enabled chatbots, contact centers can deliver round-the-clock customer support. Call centers can deploy these intelligent tools to staff shifts strategically for continuous customer service, so fewer employees need to be on call after regular business hours.
Many contact centers have leveraged interactive voice response (IVR) systems to enable customers to resolve their questions on their own. Those systems – sometimes known as virtual receptionists – are a powerful communication tool that automates interactions and increases first-time resolutions through touch-tone key selections and voice commands. They have been, until very recently, the most commonly used self-service tool, but the rise of IVAs, with their expanded capabilities, has reduced the dependence on IVRs. IVAs can do much more and are the superior choice today.
4.Reduce Spend
It’s understandable why enterprises might be wary of the cost of unfamiliar AI tools. However, research indicates that businesses can save money and increase service quality by investing in quality AI.
PWC predicts that by 2030, 45% of total economic gains will be because of product enhancements that stimulate consumer demand. One such enhancement is AI integration. AI tools (e.g., IVAs) can help generate revenue because they allow employees to allocate their time to focus on other critical business functions, such as sales calls. Businesses utilizing AI for contact centers can stay one step ahead of competitors and experience greater year-over-year revenue and increased customer profit margins.
See More: How Embracing AI Solutions Can Help You Effectively Communicate with HCPs
Assistance for the Future
IVAs are proving to be an effective way to navigate contact center staffing shortages while at the same time appreciably improving CX. Companies that adopt AI-enabled solutions such as IVAs will be better equipped to manage call volumes, deliver personalized customer service, grant access to self-service capabilities and 24/7 availability, and reduce overall IT spending.
By investing in AI-enabled virtual assistants, companies will enhance their contact centers and provide high-quality customer service despite ongoing labor shortages. Virtual assistants can improve contact center operations by managing call volumes, delivering personalized customer support, allowing for round-the-clock self-service and reducing IT spend.
Would you invest in AI-powered virtual assistants to improve CX? Tell us what you think on LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook. We’d love to know!
MORE ON ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
