The Future of Self-Service is Artificial Intelligence

Across industries— whether checking-into flights or checking your bank balance—self- service is becoming a way of life. According to an HBR article, 81% customers choose self service as their first resort to solve a problem. These customers want low-friction, fast resolutions. The speed & efficiency of your self-service determines their customer experience.

Forms, FAQ pages and website support will not cut it anymore. Intelligent Agents, Voice bots and Chatbots will now deliver self-service faster and better—freeing agents to handle complex, richer and more human conversations. In this post I will highlight 5 reasons why AI-powered customer service is the future of call centers:

1. Customers want resolutions not interfaces

Busy, information–saturated customers need clear directions. They don't want unnecessary choices and clutter. And they don't want to understand your interface, no matter how well it is designed. They want resolve their problems without delays.

AI driven self-service does just that. Customers just state their problem. AI does the task of figuring out what it means, browsing options, selecting and furnishing appropriate answers or steps. It stays by their side, guiding them through every step. And makes the interface invisible.

How to implement this:

Create voice bots and chatbots on your webpage/ mobile application or IVR. They will greet your customer, hear their query and give replies. Use it to provide ticket status, order status or delivery status; to answer FAQ's and give technical support. You can even implement security measures like ensuring your bot verifies customer date of birth or other such security questions, before giving information.

 2. Real-Time Analysis will make self-service more responsive

AI listens. A passive webpage doesn't realize if your customer is dissatisfied. Your AI does. With speech analysis, it analyzes what the customer says or types. With sentiment analysis, it determines mood.  It uses this to take the customer to the next step. And to improve its performance next time.

Implement Speech analysis & Sentiment Analysis to give real-time feedback to your voice bots & chatbots.

3. Seamless Escalation lead to higher FTR's

All questions aren't the frequently asked ones. Anyone managing a contact center knows there are exceptions, problems, and complicated answers that need human interaction. If your customer has one of these, then fumbling about in self-service can leave them frustrated.  But AI powered self service —whether it is a voice bot or a chat bot—determines when human interaction is needed. The customer is seamlessly transferred from self-service to a personal interaction that solves their problem in first contact.

Connect the voice bots and chat bots on your webpage/ mobile application or IVR with your call routing.

4.  Voice recognition will transform ease-of-interaction

Chatbots can provide customers answers when they need to be discreet or are multitasking on their systems. But it's inconvenient when they or are on the move, lounging on the couch; or have their hands occupied with something else.

Now people don't need to have their hands on a keypad and eyes on a screen to opt for self-service. AI driven Voice Bots will respond to their natural language, effectively understanding what they say and responding accordingly.

Use voice bots to complement your chat bots. Use Smart IVR with Voice recognition features turned on. People can interact with your call center through their app, your site, or your number—completely hands-free.

5. Your AI keeps learning, keeps your self-service dynamic

Analysis of problem areas isn't complicated anymore. AI can keep a tab of when problems occur, it can identify problem clusters in real-time. It can work with you to create solutions, faster than ever before.

Get voice-enabled analysis. You don't need a querying language to interact with your analysis. And you can determine problems and give AI instructions easily using natural language.

Experts project that by 2020, 85% customer interactions will be handled without humans. AI will create both efficiency and excellence.Rather than replacing people, they will pave the way for better human interactions; and bring huge opportunities for businesses.

But implementing AI effectively isn't a plug-and-forget option. Effective AI needs a lot of human work. At Ozonetel, we are continuously working with clients to implement, develop, improve and innovate. My advice to call centers is that the faster they adopt and implement AI & Machine Learning, the more effective and efficient their future CX solutions will be.