When a contact center first toys with conversational AI, it will typically batch together its most common customer queries.
From there, it’ll analyze how a live agent resolves that query and then look to recreate that journey within the flow of a bot.
If that's not possible, they may ask: what knowledge does a human agent need to resolve this query? Then, they may aim to proactively feed that to agents during a live contact.
That approach is far too human-oriented. It does not consider how a business can unify AI technologies, reinvent the journey, and provide a more seamless customer experience.
As such, it’s time to take a more task-orientated approach to contact center AI and virtual agents - according to Anand Janefalkar, CEO of UJET. In conversation with CX Today, he said:
“These agents handle specific tasks, much like microservices in enterprise software. Such a modular approach allows for greater flexibility and integration.”
Moreover, the strategy welcomes a higher level of creativity as service leaders open their minds to define the best way to resolve their most prominent customer queries.
Define the Single Best Way for a Resolution
Take a common task a customer wishes to complete, and first assess whether the contact stems from a broken process. Fixing that upfront saves unnecessary investment in AI.
If that’s not possible, consider how the contact center can combine AI, humans, and modalities to drive the simplest resolution for the customer.
For instance, perhaps a customer wishes to refill a prescription. Typically, they may have to interact with a live agent or fill in an extensive online form to complete this task.
However, what if they could – using the cameras on their smartphones - scan their ID and packaging from their previous prescription bottle as part of an orchestrated online virtual agent experience?
From there, the contact center could leverage 30-year-old optical character recognition (OCR) capabilities to validate the prescription and – via workflow automation – automate the refill.
That’s just one example, and Baker Johnson, CMO of UJET, believes this new level of creative thinking could “redefine” customer experience.
“The deeper impact is in how these virtual agent and AI technologies – including GenAI - are integrated into back-end workflows and orchestration,” he said.
“This shift is redefining how businesses approach customer experience and how they use data to enhance customer journeys.”
A critical part of that transition is overcoming conventional contact center thinking. For instance, many will emphasize: “I must resolve the customer’s query in their channel of choice.”
Yet, in line with the task-oriented AI approach above, service leaders should think: “I must meet the customer at their point of ingress and blend data, channels, modalities, and automation to resolve their issue with the minimal amount of ‘experience’ required!”
Don’t Take the Wrong Turn
Consider the human-orientated approach again. Every time a business wants to add automation to a new channel, they must think: how would an agent on this channel handle that query?
