Actionable Insights on How AI is Transforming Call Centers

With the ever-growing and doubling call volumes in the industries—the need for modern and automated solutions like Artificial Intelligence (AI) is more important than ever.

As the COVID-19 virus descended in March 2021 in the U.S., hotel industries and airlines saw an increase in call volumes by 130% and 96%, respectively. And one such customer-centric industry with large call volumes is the call center industry. In addition, customers no longer want to tolerate long call hold times and other inefficiencies in this fast-paced world.

Besides customer service, AI is changing the call centers in many other ways to improve operational efficiency and overall sales and revenue.

This article will take you through actionable insights into AI call center automation that has led to a transformation in the call center industry.

Transformation of Artificial Intelligence in Call Centers

By 2027, the call center industry is predicted to reach a revised size of $496 billion, rising to a 5.9% CAGR. This immense growth calls for modern technological solutions.

AI in call centers comes into use in two major categories. The first is that it evaluates large data volumes to provide insights and improve the agent’s performance. And the second is nothing but conversational AI that analyzes customers’ emotions, speech, tone, and overall engagement level with the call center agent.

Let’s see the different ways in which these AI categories are transforming the call center industries.

1. AI chatbots

With the massive usage of smartphones and mobile applications—customers do not expect long call times and waits but a quick and instant response and query resolution. Thus, call centers use these mediums to connect with their customers and offer support through AI-based chatbots.

According to a Salesforce report, 69% of customers actively use chatbots for faster query resolution. While these bots can efficiently handle the basic and common customer questions, they’re also capable of handing over the complex queries to the right and suitable agent.

Therefore, these chatbots are key call center automation trends that offer an excellent customer experience, reduce call wait times, and offer premium support to call center agents.

2. Automation and analysis

AI call center solutions collect a huge amount of data from the calls and customer interaction to create a customer profile for future reference.

It analyzes the customer’s needs, demands, behavioral patterns, emotions towards the brands—to offer actionable and valuable customer insights. Furthermore, these processes are completely automated during each call and require no human intervention.

The insights gathered from the conversation can be used to interpret the areas of improvement and route calls to the right agents, bringing us to our next point.

3. Improved performance and productivity

Besides customer profiles, the AI automated call center system also analyzes the agent’s performance based on their previous call handling experiences and performance benchmarks.

For instance, some agents can seamlessly handle negative calls and customers while others can’t, or some are experts on specific topics. So, based on the gathered customer and agent’s data and profile, AI automatically routes the complex customer calls to the right and suitable agents that can effectively handle that specific customer. This is called behavioral profile matching.

In addition, since the AI solutions are integrated with the agent’s workstation—they also receive valuable customer insights and data, so they get a clear picture of the customers and their interests to handle the call better.

This process to the accurate and automated call routing significantly improves agents’ productivity and performance—ultimately improving customer satisfaction.

4. Improved customer satisfaction

When agents handle customer interactions productively and offer reliable and quick resolutions—it improves overall customer service and experience.

The higher call resolution rates, faster response times, reduced wait times cater to the needs and expectations of today’s customers—improving customer retention rates, satisfaction, business reputation, and revenue.

Conclusion

While it’s not a new concept, the AI call center automation software and solutions have seen accelerated growth since the advent of the global pandemic. These AI solutions significantly bridge the gap between the agents and customers by offering automated and efficient solutions to keep everyone connected and provide real-time support to both the agents and the customers.

Right from chatbots, behavioral profile matching, data collection, and insights—if implemented correctly, AI can be a gamechanger for your call center.

Services like the interface.ai platform offer AI automation call center solutions for banks and credit unions to help them improve not only their customer service but also make more revenue and sales. So, check out and choose their services for your call center to make it a revenue center.