DUBAI, UAE — There have been numerous attempts over the years to use automation to lower call center costs. Unfortunately, the majority of their efforts had failed! The savings were only theoretical, as real-life calls still needed to be answered by humans.
Today, AI automation can save money without compromising on critical KPIs such as customer satisfaction.
Simply, customer service via AI and machine learning is excellent for the routine calls that make up 60 -80 percent of a call center’s workload.
In this approach, support staff may devote their attention to the problems that truly benefit from having a live person intervene.
Gartner, Inc. estimates that conversational AI contact center deployments will save agents US$ 80 bn in labor expenses by 2026. Global spending on contact center conversational AI systems is expected to hit US$ 1.99 bn by 2022 from end users.
An estimate by Gartner’s vice president and chief analyst, Daniel O’Connell, puts the number of people working in contact centers at over 17 million. Agent staff shortages and the need to reduce personnel expenses, which can account for as much as 95 percent of contact center costs, are problems for many companies. Conversational AI enhances agents’ productivity and effectiveness while enhancing their customer relationships.
According to Gartner, the percentage of automated AI-powered interactions with human agents will rise to a whopping 10.0 percent by 2026. This is up from an expected 1.6 percent in 2018. Within two years, conversational AI is predicted to offer transformative benefits for customer service and support organizations by automating all or part of a contact center customer engagement via voice and digital channels, using voice bots or chatbots.
The deployment of a complex, enterprise-level conversational AI system can take many years, as new call flows must be built out, and current ones must be fine-tuned for improvement.
According to Gartner, the average cost to integrate a conversational AI agent is between US$ 1,000 and US$ 1,500. However, some companies report spending as much as US$ 2,000.
Companies with 2,500 or more agents and the financial means to invest in the necessary technical resources will drive the early adoption of conversational AI.
How can AI lower costs?
Here are ways in which AI-driven automation might help call centers save money:
Reduce call costs
Most phone calls are repetitious. Yet, high volume requires additional workers to maintain customer satisfaction (CSAT).
At the same time, advanced tools help educate AI virtual agents before they go live and anytime after, so you don’t have to worry about conversation quality.
Virtual agents may give step-by-step instructions, collect information, and answer queries naturally, spending less per call than humans.
Reduce contact center staffing and turnover
Constant connection with emotional customers makes customer service stressful. This and repetition produce significant call center turnover.
When virtual agents work alongside customer service professionals, “robots” do the commonplace while humans address problems requiring significant critical thinking. These situations are intriguing and offer professional progress. Agents become specialists, not just machine intermediates.
Call center automation reduces average handle time.
Customer support reps must follow the script but not disrupt callers. Unfortunately, this increases call center conversation time and consumer wait time.
Virtual agents don’t put consumers on hold because they already know the answers. If the virtual agent is appropriately set up, taught, and integrated, it will pull the correct information: shorter average talk time and cheaper cost per minute decrease call costs.