AI In Call Centres – Key Technology Developments

Artificial intelligence (AI) is developing at pace and is playing an ever-increasing role in businesses across a wide range of sectors. Tools such as Chat GPT, Copilot and Gemini gain the most attention but there are many others, most of which fulfil a specialist function. The call centre sector is also beginning to explore how AI can be harnessed to deliver exceptional service to customers and support their call centre agents. Call centre AI technology is very nascent at present but is likely to play a key role in the future. Although we are still at an early stage of AI’s development, the call centre sector agrees that AI will not replace call centre agents. Instead, it will play a supporting role whereby it enhances and augments the capabilities of call centre agents. The role of AI in call centres remains a key unanswered question, which the wider sector and many call centres are considering.

While the exact role of AI in call centres may be unclear, there are many potential applications in development, from AI chatbots and AI predictive analytics through to AI-powered decision making and AI virtual coaches. The challenge for call centres is assessing which forms of AI technology are likely to make the greatest impact and deciding which solutions to adopt in the pursuit of efficiency and service excellence. In this article, we explore a number of AI technology solutions and assess how each one can help a call centre deliver efficient operations and excellent service to its clients and their customers.

AI Technology In Call Centres

Many call centres are on a continuing drive towards greater efficiency and service excellence, and AI technology can contribute to both when it is harnessed in the right way. In most cases a blended approach of using AI to support existing call centre operations led by skilled and trained call centre agents will deliver the best possible results.

The range of AI technology solutions that are developing range from the relatively straightforward through to the advanced solutions that are at the leading edge of AI. The more straightforward solutions are those that pre-date AI and have been enhanced with AI capabilities, such as chat bots. Meanwhile, the advanced solutions include predictive analytics and automations.

AI Chatbots

AI chatbots are very much the second-generation version of chatbots that offer an almost endless range of functionality when compared to earlier chatbots. This new generation of chatbots is often able to access live data, communicate using natural language and personalise its responses to individual customers. It is set to play an important role in handling simple requests quickly and efficiently, which frees up agents to respond to complex queries. Research conducted by Kore.ai indicates that 76% of consumers agree that organisations that use automated assistant technology handle their requests faster and more accurately. Simple requests such as order statuses, delivery queries or system statuses can be easily handled by AI chatbots in an accessible way with responses that use natural language that customers can identify with.

Customers from younger demographics even see AI powered systems as being as good as people. This is particularly the case for Gen Z and millennial consumers. However, this view is not shared among older demographics, which reinforces the need for a hybrid approach to deliver excellent service to all customers. AI Chatbots could also help call centres to meet rising expectation of call centre agents. A majority of consumers expect agents to have all the relevant information about them available immediately. While AI is only one way to achieve this, it could be effective as part of a hybrid approach, where customer service is led by people but augmented with AI.

Recent advances with AI chatbots have extended their functionality further with chat personalisation and advanced analytics which can provide insights into how customer service conversations could be improved in the future. They are also able to automatically route complex cases to the most skilled agents, which helps to counter the frustration that consumers can face if a chatbot is unable to help with their query. These advances are making AI chatbots more responsive, reactive to interactions and even proactive as they can tap into vast knowledge bases and are not constrained to a script. As chatbots continue to develop and become an ever-more sophisticated tool, they are likely to play a greater role in customer service outsourcing delivered by outsourced call centres.

AI Predictive Analytics

AI powered predictive analytics meets the clear need for call centres of all types, including outsourced call centres, to deliver a great customer experience within budget. In the era of data-driven customer experience, predictive analytics can deliver helpful insights to inform the future delivery of exceptional service. Contact centres are becoming a valuable source of customer understanding and drivers of CX strategy with a role in strategic decision making. This places the call centre at the heart of an organisations’ operations and provides it with significant organisation-wide influence.

The true potential offered by AI predictive analytics is apparent when it is used to anticipate needs, which can help inform planning for peaks in demand, personalise interactions based on customers’ previous contact with an organisation and foster great customer connections with personalisation. The capabilities of predictive analytics in terms of determining likely customer behaviour and support needs would be particularly valuable in a call centre context. For example, if a customer frequently makes contact about product order updates and prefers to be called by their first name, a combination of predictive analytics and personalisation would be able to make use of this information.

AI technology that is able to predict which customers are most likely to churn based on interaction history and target them with relevant personalised offers could be game-changing in terms of boosting customer retention in an intelligent data-driven way. This form of predictive technology can also help to target customer retention activities on customers that are most likely to require it and respond to it while reducing unnecessary contact with customers who are less likely to churn, which should help to reduce the total cost of retention activities.

AI-Powered Decision Making

AI-powered decision making is a relatively new form of AI technology that has significant potential to augment the capabilities of call centre employees by helping to inform decision making processes. In its most advanced form, it can become a trusted adviser for call centre specialists in strategic and day to day decisions. Its ability to instantaneously draw on vast knowledge bases and data sets and take these into account when making decisions, provides it with a unique capability that sets it apart from people working in a call centre.

It is also adept when it comes to improving employee welfare by assisting in areas including recruitment, on-boarding and HR support. AI’s rule-based nature and enhanced natural language capabilities make it well matched to welfare and HR issues, especially as it can operate 24/7 and be there for call centre agents when a traditional HR department can’t be. Its ability to support agents to thrive in the call centre can also improve staff retention. One pertinent example of its capability in this area is its capacity to advise on call centre agents who are at risk of burnout and even predict attrition and absence.

Surprisingly, AI’s ability to predict burnout patterns among agents can also help HR personnel and call centre supervisors to better allocate their time and resources so they are targeted towards the agents that need help and support the most. Call centres can be a very busy and high-pressure environment, which can cause burnout and wellbeing issues. When AI-powered decision making and skilled HR people work closely together, these pressing issues can be addressed and call centre agents who require additional help and support can be supported by the appropriate people within their call centre.

The potential that AI-powered decision making has to deepen understanding between call centre agents, their supervisors and call centre management is encouraging. It could transform how well each team within a call centre works together by unlocking opportunities to reduce burnout and increase employee wellbeing.

AI Virtual Coaches

Call centre agent wellbeing is an important area that many call centres are focusing on. People are often a call centre’s greatest asset and by looking after your agents, they will be best placed to look after your clients’ customers. This is also key to delivering exceptional service. AI virtual coaches can play a key role in agent wellbeing by offering timely feedback to agents based on their interactions. Feedback may include tips on how to provide greater customer service or suggestions as to how interaction time may be reduced to improve efficiency, for example. This invaluable feedback can be provided in a supportive way so that agents see their AI virtual coach as a helpful tool that allows them to perform at their best.

AI technology that can plug into live calls and provide in-call knowledge to the agent in real-time is set to become available. This technology will help agents to communicate additional information to customers during their interactions, which allows them to provide a higher level of service and hopefully resolve queries within fewer interactions. It also saves agents valuable time in having to check and refer to different systems, which can waste valuable interaction time and negatively impact call efficiency. AI can also add significant value post-call by quality checking interactions. It is able to scan through interactions and highlight potential improvements using text and speech analytics. These suggestions can help to improve future interactions and raise the standard of service delivered to customers.

AI virtual coaches can also be available 24/7, unlike human coaches who will be restricted by working hours and their availability. The AI virtual coach can be accessible to all at any time, so individual agents can get the support that they need to overcome everyday challenges including challenging customers, repetitive interactions, high call volumes and significant workloads. The support provided by the AI virtual coach can then be supplemented by guidance from a human coach.

AI Automation

Automation has been part of the call centre technology stack for many years, but with the advancement of AI, its capabilities are extended further and can cover even more complex areas of call centre operations. AI automation is particularly effective in streamlining customer service processes by drawing on multi-modal capabilities and its ability to understand different data types in real-time. Whether customers are communicating with a call centre via chat, phone or email, AI is able to accurately interpret their information and set appropriate automations into motion.

It is likely that automation will be able to assist with managing claims processing, application workflows and complaint responses. Many of these tasks can occupy a significant amount of a call centre agent’s time and by freeing it up, they can be available to assist with more complex queries.

Future advancement of AI automation technology is set to provide capability in predictive customer support, real-time multi-lingual assistance and advanced fraud detection. Predictive customer support could help in driving efficiencies in everyday customer service delivery, while real-time multi-lingual assistance could extend the service offerings of call centres and allow them to serve customers using a greater range of languages. If AI-powered fraud detection solutions are developed, they could provide an additional line of defence in protecting customer data, particularly in call centres that provide payment processing facilities to clients.