The Next Frontier: Automation in Call Centers

With the advancements in technology and changing needs of our customers, automation in business is expanding and becoming extremely sophisticated. How would automation work in a call center?

Automation in Call Centers

Call centers will be upgrading and adapting to the latest automation and AI – artificial intelligence — technology to keep up with the competition.

Millennials, now in their 30s and 40s, are the world’s largest market of potential customers and are more drawn toward self-service options than human interaction. Millennials consider themselves more self-reliant and when self-service online doesn’t satisfy their questions or concerns, will opt for a call center agent.

AI is the most common form of automation that we’ve noticed these past years. AI Assistance helps a business set up a series of automated responses to commonly asked customer concerns or questions, offering a prompt reply. When set up properly, customers not satisfied with the response or with a complicated question provided by AI, can be transferred to a support agent, providing that human connection with the ability to triage the issues and provide solutions.

In addition, AI and other forms of automation technology can help analyze the data gathered from the calls as one of the ways to improve customer interaction.

Another benefit of adapting automation is that it can provide a higher level of responsiveness. An example of which is pre-emptive customer service, where calls can be evaluated and triaged to anticipate the needs of the customers based on their preferences and prior queries.

An automated response call service to respond to non-emergency calls can also be a huge help during holidays and late hours when agents are less likely to be available or take more requests.

Why Talking to a Person is Sometimes the Best Customer Service

Even with the advances in technology, today’s automation services are not enough to meet the needs of the customers. Because of this, human agents are still considered valuable assets in a call center.

By having a call center using both automation and human agents, a call center can be more effective in providing customers with a more successful experience and outcome. AI bots can obtain information from customers while human agents can handle that first level of actual customer interaction saving the call center agents to resolve more complex information for customers.

Automation is a good thing and will continue to improve but it doesn’t eliminate the need for human agents. The goal for a company is to use automation successfully while not de-personalizing the customer’s experience. When done right (creating and following a good, structured process), it can be a valuable customer service improvement tool.

Outsourcing your business calls will help you attain the work-life balance you’ve been aspiring for. It brings a more positive experience to your customers without compromising your productivity and company resources.