Artificial Intelligence in Call Center – Advantages & Disadvantages

Artificial Intelligence in Call Center – Advantages & Disadvantages

Introduction

Two decades ago, Artificial Intelligence (AI) was still emerging; however, this technology took the business world by storm. It has also revolutionized call center businesses by handling customer support services for different sectors. Technology plays a significant role in changing the way of call center operations. However, some strategies remain constant such as few static scripts, call managing strategies, etc.

With such advanced call center technologies, the management team has a particular group of data to be in the driving seat of customer interaction. Such data groups include-

• frequency of calls per customer,
• types of interactions,
• marketing campaigns viewed by the customers,
• ways to look for new customers in the future, and so on.

AI is one of the many technologies which call centers leverage. AI, like machine learning tools and cloud services, has explosively boosted the growth of call centers.

Advantages of AI

There are various advantages of using AI tools and services, which are as follows:

1. Handling Large Sets of Data

The creation of data is dependent on the number of customers and the number of interactions with them. But no matter how brilliant your staff is, manually evaluating such massive volumes of data is practically impossible. There is too much data for humans to compare and process. However, AI-powered technologies can easily assess large amounts of data quickly. So, by evaluating past and present customer data, such technologies can forecast their future behaviour and learn more about the customers.

You may, among other things, use this information to develop focused marketing efforts or identify your customer’s most typical problems and grievances. However, if you want to benefit from AI’s data processing capabilities, a customer relationship management tool can be used. The outcomes are better when it has more data. However, AI will only function well if its sole data sources are a few spreadsheets.

2. Predict Upcoming Trends

One of AI’s most significant benefits is that it offers predictions and supports the detection of trends. However, such forecasts and trends depend on a massive data load. AI can ascertain current trends based on performance, calls, number of customers, and so on. It also helps project future trends. Such information can be used to develop effective strategies to improve customer service and determine the success of the new service or product. AI determines the current functions and industrial situations and predicts the future.

3. Minimizes Average Handling Time

Are you looking for a strategy to minimize the time your agents spend on each call while we’re talking about how to improve customer service?

Chatbots and passive voice biometrics are some forms of AI that can be beneficial in such situations. People don’t have to wait for a person to handle their problems because chatbots can rapidly respond to basic questions and requests. Customers can merely ask the chatbots for assistance.

As the customer’s persona can be recognized after a few seconds by listening to how they speak, passive voice biometrics can also significantly reduce the time your agents spend on each conversation. If your agents often need to confirm each caller’s identification, switching to voice biometrics from conventional verification approaches will shorten the time spent on each call while ensuring that all customers’ details are kept completely secure.

4. Workforce Management

AI plays a significant role in managing the workforce of the call center. Internal staff planning is essential for call center operations, with which productivity may be improved. Various AI tools can be used to develop effective staff management plans. Moreover, when the tasks become monotonous, AI tools can be used to perform such tedious tasks, and the idle workforce can be diverted to perform other tasks.

5. Convenient Performance Tracking

Considering a substantial increase in your customer support efforts, you must be aware of your business’s practical and ineffective practices while keeping an eye on your staff’s performance. Solutions provided by AI make it a walk in the park.

Professional dashboards provide analytical and reporting tools that let you evaluate your team’s performance from all angles. No matter how many people you have or where they are located, you can see all the information on your dashboard, including the number of calls each call center agent answers daily and the average duration of each interaction. Moreover, a typical analytical dashboard can be customized conveniently, allowing you to focus on the metrics most important to the business rather than overloading it with unimportant metrics.

6. Call Center Agents’ Assistant

One of the roles that AI can play in improving call centers is that of an assistant to the agents, enhancing their capacity to respond to consumer inquiries quickly and effectively. While some claim that AI will replace human workers, it’s important to remember that humans will always be valued for their ability to connect with others, and AI will serve as an aide to reduce stress and repetitive tasks.

Disadvantages of AI

Now, let’s switch to the other side and discuss the disadvantages of AI in call centers.

1. Lack of Personal Touch

When a customer is agitated, only another person can calm them down. Personal interaction is a part of human nature and is in our DNA which some machine cannot replace. In complex situations, customers become easily frustrated and show disrespect for robots because they can see through artificial intelligence in their textbook responses. Hence, customer and chatbot interactions are sometimes win-win scenarios in call centers.

2. Higher Upfront Cost

Replacing humans and stimulating their intelligence through a machine is a costly undertaking. A massive load of money and time is required to implement such technologies.

Due to their complexity, AI chatbots and AI-powered customer assistance need a knowledgeable team for proper management. Responsible data management is required to install, create, and ” educate ” bots. Additionally, this calls for partners or staff with specialized skill sets.

As you can expect, this can be costly because it depends not only on the expertise of specialized people but also on the maintenance of chatbots and artificial intelligence services. When using third-party services or signing contracts for the service, the expense may increase as well.

3. New or Improper Escalation

AI is only considered an influential tech for some customers’ issues. There are multiple scenarios in which AI remains ineffective. For example, when the problem is new or complex or a person is highly irritated, and so on. The AI cannot handle such scenarios, and for the best resolutions and experience, human interaction is required at some point.

Two Cents

The only way businesses can keep customers and build loyalty in any competitive business environment is to listen to consumers and answer their problems. While AI quickly gathers knowledge, it finds replacing or mimicking fundamental human interactions difficult. Using artificial intelligence by support personnel enables them to be more strategic and work more efficiently.

While chatbots and other AI-enabled technology route calls, help customers, and gathers mountains of data in the background, allowing agents to concentrate on complex issues. The entire customer experience will be improved, along with customer journeys and the route to customer attainment.