Agent Assist: Use Cases, Benefits, & Providers

Agent assist is not a new subset of customer experience technology.

Contact centers have leveraged tools for years to recommend next-best actions, proactively surface knowledge base content, and automate desktop processes.

Yet, with the rise of generative AI (GenAI) and virtual assistants – like Copilot – agent assist has become a central area of contact center AI investment.

Moreover, many vendors have vastly expanded their agent-assist capabilities to meet this demand.

Six of these vendors have participated in this month’s CX Today roundtable, putting forward the following spokespeople.

• Donald McNelis, Cloud Business Development Manager at Avaya
• Michael Wallace, Americas Solutions Architecture Leader for CX at AWS
• Brett Weigl, SVP of AI Product Management at Genesys
• Elizabeth Tobey, Head of Marketing for Digital Solutions at NICE
• Crystal Miceli, VP of Product & Industry Marketing at Talkdesk
• Laura Ball, CX AI Lead for EMEA at Zoom

Below, each industry expert shares their favorite agent-assist use case before highlighting several benefits of deploying the technology.

Agent Assist: The Use Cases

Supporting Agents Adapt to New Policies & Procedures

Wallace: Agent assist is excellent for helping new reps reach proficiency faster. But, a more unexpected result is how it’s aiding tenured agents in adapting to new policy and process changes.

Often, tenured agents become used to doing things a certain way, and changes to processes or policies can introduce errors.

Agent assist gives new and tenured agents the same prescriptive guidance on policy and procedure adherence, minimizing the possibility of error and resistance to change.

Organizations can now expect that their customers will receive a consistent quality of service regardless of which agent the customer speaks with.

Simplifying Customer Content

McNelis: Some of the best use cases come from where grammar, natural language processing (NLP), and GenAI tools augment an agent’s written communications.

For instance, a virtual assistant can help summarize company information quickly in an easy-to-understand, clear, and concise way.

As a result, it’s not only easier to respond quickly to queries but also makes the process far less stressful, as people don’t have to spend time reading pages upon pages of company documents to find the right solution.

For agents with dyslexia or dyspraxia, this is an especially helpful aid as they can confidently correspond with customers, clients, and fellow employees.

Enhancing Case Management

Tobey: One of the tougher tasks an agent has is walking a customer through a multi-step process, such as an annual tax filing process.

One of the new ways that AI is augmenting agents is by generating step-by-step instructions.

Based on the need, AI can modify the format of the instructions to be very specific or general.

These instructions can pop up automatically during an interaction to guide an agent on how to help a customer, enhancing case management.

Agents can also personalize these instructions and use AI to take the customer through the steps at their speed, giving the agent time to focus on other tasks that require their attention.

As a result, it removes much of the frustration that can arise for agents and customers, leading to faster resolutions and better employee and customer experiences.

Automating Ticket Tagging/Contact Dispositioning

Miceli: With manual post-contact processing, agents incorrectly tagged customer conversations 27 percent of the time, according to Talkdesk research.

However, with agent assist, contact centers can automate that process with AI, which – according to the CCaaS vendor – only makes errors in three percent of cases. That’s a significant difference.

After all, contact centers use that disposition data to isolate customer trends, identify broken processes, and inform automation strategies.

So, when almost 30 percent of that intent data is inaccurate, misguided business decisions become a considerable concern.

Drafting or Informing Real-Time Customer Responses

Ball: Some agent assist tools – like Zoom AI Expert Assist – can access over 100 knowledge pools.

In doing so, they collect information from various sources to inform and – across digital channels – draft agent responses to customer queries.

On audio and video calls, agent assist can instead sift through knowledge bases and data stores to show the agent the most relevant articles and insights in real time.

Streamlining Agent Onboarding

Weigl: Agent assist streamlines new hire processes and reduces costs for organizations that invest in expensive employee training.

With AI copilots that automate tasks like note-taking, wrap-up codes, and more, employees can focus on more critical onboarding topics.

As such, new agents will feel more confident and require less training since agent assist lifts the burden of performing specific tasks.

Agent Assist: The Benefits

It Makes the Agent Role More Fulfilling

McNelis: Agent assist allows live agents to focus on higher-value activities, such as relationship management, retention, and revenue generation.

Indeed, reps have become more about problem-solving and collaboration, and – ultimately - more integral across the business as the single point of contact.

Yet, that doesn’t mean they’re always best suited to handle each and every query. Instead, they can be the orchestrators of conversations across the business, perhaps via swarming on connected CCaaS-UCaaS platforms.

Agents can also check AI-generated responses before sending them to customers instead of having to start them from scratch.

With these changes, agents become brand ambassadors who are critical to a positive, and therefore successful, customer experience.

It Supports the Development of Live and Virtual Agents

Tobey: Agent assist removes a lot of the grunt work notorious for bogging agents down and burning them out.

Instead of searching for information and struggling to figure out how to best proceed with an interaction, agents have the necessary information at their fingertips in real time.

Agents may also focus more on what matters most: developing stronger customer relationships.

Moreover, as bot-led interactions become more prevalent, agents will play a role in training bots so they deliver a similar level of service.

Indeed, they'll create a collaborative relationship between bots and agents, transforming employee and customer experiences at the same time while enabling organizations to drive improved agent-assisted and unassisted interactions.

It Increases Efficiency & Process Consistency

Weigl: Contact center agents are facing more complex queries, higher customer expectations, and increased pressure to resolve calls.

Agent assist will correct the imbalance in a contact center agent’s time so they can better connect with customers and focus on high-value interactions.

With agent assist, employees can automate receptive tasks, summarize conversations, and get faster access to helpful answers - increasing their efficiency and ensuring process consistency.

It Supports the Convergence of Service and Sales

Miceli: In the future, agents may have a more blended role with sales, as more complex problem resolution may lead to potential upsell or cross-sell opportunities.

Yet, agents will also need to become more sales- and tech-savvy, which requires significant training.

That tech-savviness is crucial as agents must be able to use and adapt to continuously changing technologies beyond what’s immediately available on their desktops.

Lastly, agents will evolve into more trusted advisory / consultant-type roles - placing more emphasis on empathetic people skills, relationship development, and conflict resolution skills because bots will handle more simple, repetitive queries.

The good news is that this gives agents more time to deal with complex issues. But, with agents dealing with difficult situations more frequently, it also creates a need for them to show more empathy and creativity, which can drain their energy.

It Lowers Administrative Burdens and Streamlines Workflows

Ball: From next-best-action recommendations to real-time translation, agent-assist use cases typically help to reduce administrative burdens and streamline workflows.

In doing so, it boosts agent productivity, satisfaction, and – ultimately – engagement by minimizing repetitive tasks and enabling more meaningful customer interactions.