Have you ever wondered how artificial intelligence (AI) is affecting the contact/call centre industry? If your answer is yes, you’ve come to the right place.

We’ll be taking a look at the common ways in which AI is being used in this industry and how it affects contact centres. According to the IDC, it is estimated that by 2022, the worldwide spend on AI and cognitive systems will reach $77.6 billion.

Many industries are investing in artificial intelligence to help save time in day-to-day tasks.

What is AI?

Artificial intelligence, often shortened to AI, is a simulation of human intelligence in technology such as computers and machines. AI is a computer science that is designed to act and respond as close to human behaviour as possible, thus making it smart, fast and accurate.

In computers, chatbots, email automation, predictions to finish sentences, spam filters, data collection and organization are a few good examples of AI being used in everyday technology.

Other recognizable examples of AI are Siri in iPhones, Alexa on Amazon, Auto-pilot on commercial flights and many other types of robotics and programming. Datamation has a more detailed article of 12 examples of artificial intelligence.

AI in Contact Centres

Artificial Intelligence in contact centres is often a reference to the automation of the live chats, chatbots, data collection, automatic email replies etc.

AI is implemented by contact centres to enhance the systems and customer experience rather than to replace human employees. This is due to the fact that although artificial intelligence is fast, helpful and smart, it is unable to solve complex customer queries and problems the way a human could.

Another downfall of AI is that it’s relatively expensive to implement fully and many studies have proven that a bigger majority of people get fed up with automated responses and robotic voices and prefer a live phone call with a person instead.

How is AI Helpful in Call Centres?

When waiting for a responder to be available, chatbots can ask the customer basic questions about their problem or query and have all the information ready for the consultant to speed up the process.

One of the top rules of AI is the more it’s used, the more data it collects, the more it learns.

Here are a few of the top ways AI is helpful in call centres:

• Help customers navigate a website
• Predict customer behaviour
• Data management
• Identify call types
• Respond in a timely manner

Closing Thoughts

We hope that after reading this article you understand a bit better how AI is affecting contact centres.

It’s important to acknowledge that while artificial intelligence is being implemented across many industries, the best use of AI in contact centres is to enhance the customer service experience and no one is looking to use AI as a replacement for skilled human employees.

In contact centres, AI is being used as a means to speed up conversion rates and get more done quickly and efficiently. For example, when AI provides an agent with the history of a client and a summary of the current problem, the agent will be able to sort out the customer’s problem nice and quick.

So if you were worried that the future of call centre customer care was going to be taken over by robots, don’t be. AI in contact centres is only useful to enhance the service, not replace it.