How AI is Revolutionizing Customer Service?

Arisa Chang, Head of Global Customer Relationship Management department at KKday

Arisa Chang, Head of Global Customer Relationship Management department at KKday

What is a Call Center/Contact Center?

From limited phone hubs to multi-channel powerhouses, “Call Center” has transformed to “Contact Center” . This shift is crucial, considering over 75% of customers abandon brands due to poor service. As the frontline of business, contact centers now hold the key to build relationship and craft positive experiences that keeps customers loyal.

Over the past two decades, contact centers have undergone a dramatic transformation, driven by technological advancements. They now operate 24/7, offering a diverse range of communication channels beyond just phone calls. Customers can now reach them anytime through email, websites, and mobile applications.

However, rising labor costs represent the biggest expense for contact centers. Finding and retain staffs are even harder than before pandemic as delivery service rised. Customers also expect quick responses, which requires more contact center staffs. Reducing each service interaction by just 10 seconds can save a business millions of dollars annually.

AI bring contact center's revolution. It boosts efficiency, cuts costs, and eases agent stress. The pandemic is the catalyst pushing companies to implement solutions quickly. By 2021, more than half of contact centers had already developed AI strategy.

AI in Call Service

Contact center is a innovation thrives environment for a long time. 20 years ago, the most basic interactive voice response (IVR) could classify basic call types and provide general inquiries to customers through voice announcements. For example, credit card businesses used auto voice option to separate customers who called for bill amount only which diverted some incoming calls, and allowing contact center to handle more calls with resolution rate improve, Another way is to route certain types of inquiries to specific agents. It helps improving the efficiency of call services and ensure that customers are able to get the needed help quickly and easily.

Conversational AI and Intelligent Virtual Assistant (IVAs)are a significant step up from IVR technology. However, IVR has its limitations, such as the need for customers to interact through key presses or specific voice commands which needs pre-defined voice response matrices.

The latest AI overcomes the limitation. Customers can use voice or chatbots to ask questions or describe problems directly to the system in daily words. When the system cannot resolve the issue, it can seamlessly escalate the issue to a live agent.

AI can do more than just serve customers directly but also track customer emotions on the call by analyzing tone and speech patterns.This information can notify customer service supervisors, who can intervene appropriately to avoid escalating customer complaints.

AI in live Chat Service

Live chat experiences also significantly improved via leveraging the same AI which enhance contact center services. These intelligent tools empower chatbots to provide responsive customer support, answer inquiries effortlessly, and gather valuable information.

Beyond functionality, businesses also personalize the interaction by crafting unique names and backstories for their chatbots. This fosters a more personal connection with customers, allowing for humor and wit in the chatbot's responses. This combination of personalization and engaging interaction not only makes the experience enjoyable but also reinforces the business's unique brand personality.

AI in Email Service

Understanding customer issues in lengthy email threads is a challenge for agents. The back-and-forth nature of email makes it difficult to grasp context, history, and key information, hindering swift and effective assistance.

AI steps in to alleviate this pain point by automatically generating summaries of email threads. These summaries equip agents with a concise overview, enabling them to quickly understand the situation, identify customer concerns, and access relevant details. This translates to faster issue resolution and a more streamlined support experience.

Furthermore, AI empowers businesses to: ● Route emails efficiently: AI scans and tags emails, ensuring they reach the most suitable team for prompt resolution.
● Suggest impactful responses: Past positive interactions are analyzed, and relevant response suggestions are provided to agents, saving time and improving engagement.
● Declutter inboxes: AI filters out junk mail and promotional messages, allowing agents to prioritize critical customer inquiries without distractions.

Ｍore AI in contact centers

Beyond the applications mentioned above, AI can further improve contact center efficiency and effectiveness in various ways. ● AI for trust and excellence: AI eliminates bias in call monitoring and evaluation, ensuring consistency and high-quality customer service that meets regulatory compliance.
● Seamless handoffs: AI bridges the gap between team me
mbers, shifts, or channels, empowering new agents to instantly help customers, ensuring a smooth experience. ● Escalate with ease: AI empowers managers by automatically summarizing complex past interactions. This allows them to jump right in, understand the situation completely, and make the best call.
● Data-driven decisions: Contact centers leverage big data to understand customer preferences and behavior, enabling tailored interactions, quality improvements, and informed decisions for success.

According to McKinsey, AI already handles about 95% of customer inquiries in some highly advanced businesses. However, 83% of people prefer to have some human interaction in their customer service experiences, and human agents still have a clear advantage. They possess emotional intelligence and critical thinking skills that enable them to solve complex problems with empathy and cultural sensitivity.

Moving forward, AI and human agents aren't competitors, but collaborators.. AI handles routine tasks (FAQs, basic support) freeing human agents for complex issues and nuanced interactions. Efficiency meets empathy for exceptional customer experiences.

Arisa Chang

Senior Manager, Customer Relationship Management With over 15 years of experience in customer service, Arisa Chang has extensive experience in the technology, e-commerce, and tourism industries, and is adept at using system integration and outsourcing to build successful and efficient teams.During her tenure at a multinational corporation (MNC), she oversaw a network of 26 contact centers across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, leading a team of over 1200 people at its peak and track record of establishing multiple service centers.

Work Experience

Department head of Customer Relationship Management, KKday Global Customer Relationship Management (Project Manager), ASUS