Artificial Intelligence (AI) isn’t a particularly new concept for contact center leaders. For years, companies have leveraged AI to help with everything from automatically routing customers to agents, analyzing huge volumes of data, and even creating intelligent team schedules.
However, in recent years, the abilities of AI have evolved. Next generation solutions like large language models (LLMs), and generative AI are paving the way for a new era of customer experience. Ever since Open AI launched ChatGPT, virtually every contact center vendor has begun exploring the potential of next-gen AI tools.
The question is, how exactly will LLMs and generative AI transform the contact center landscape as we know it? Here are some of the biggest changes we’re likely to see.
Reducing Operating Costs with AI
While an incredible contact center delivering exceptional customer experiences can deliver huge dividends to companies, it can also be expensive to build, manage, and run. One of the biggest advantages of bringing artificial intelligence into the contact center, is that it can significantly reduce operating costs.
Generative AI solutions and large language models in particular give organizations an advanced way to automate various tasks. These tools don’t just respond to customer queries and concerns using pre-set algorithms, they can creatively solve problems, complete transactions and more.
Leading generative AI solutions can also reduce training costs in the contact center, by providing agents with real-time guidance, support, and standardized responses to queries. With the right tools, business leaders can eliminate a lot of the repetitive tasks that consume crucial time and money in the contact center and make agents infinitely more effective.
AI can also help the contact center evolve beyond its current form, to include other areas of the business.
In some cases, companies may even be able to reduce the number of contact center support agents they hire, by ensuring they can rapidly adapt to changes in demand.
Enhancing the Self-Service Experience
Perhaps the most obvious way LLMs and generative AI solutions will transform the contact center, is by providing companies with ways to optimize their self-service solutions. Around 88% of customers now expect companies to have self-service strategies in place, to prevent them from having to call an agent or request support from a human representative.
Unfortunately, many of the initial chatbots introduced into the contact center failed to live up to customer expectations. Many were restricted in the way they could respond to customer queries, and implementing advanced machine learning and natural language processing capabilities was often a complex and expensive process.
The rise of generative AI and LLMs will pave the way to more humanized chatbot and self-service experiences for business leaders. These tools will allow organizations to create bots capable of offering more personalized, relevant experiences to customers. They can draw data from multiple environments to assist customers with a variety of tasks.
What’s more, generative AI bots can be customized to suit the need of a brand and its customers. They can deliver responses in a specific tone of voice, adapt to many different languages, and integrate with various tools, such as CRM systems and knowledge bases.
Boosting Business Intelligence and Insights
One of the most common ways companies have leveraged artificial intelligence in the contact center is to improve business insights. Contact centers collect and process huge volumes of data on a daily basis. This data is incredibly valuable for offering insights into the customer journey, behavioral trends, and opportunities for growth.
However, analyzing all of this data manually can be extremely complicated and time-consuming. AI and LLMs can help businesses to not only collect more valuable data, but use it more effectively. An LLM-powered chatbot can intuitively request feedback and insights from customers, which can be used to generate NPS and CSAT scores, as well as other useful reports.
The same tools can also help make various forms of data more accessible. Generative AI solutions can standardize call transcription processes, ensuring all interactions are accurately recorded and analyzed. According to one study, companies that use automated transcription tools benefit from 63% better agent performance, and 36% higher levels of customer retention.