How to Improve Customer Experience with AI-powered Collections and Call Centers?

Introduction

 

Digital transformation is the process of employing digital technology to build new or adapt existing business processes, culture and consumer experiences to meet ever-changing business and market requirements. Digital transformation is all about leveraging technology to change how a company interacts with its customers and to make internal operations more efficient.

 

Digital transformation has helped collections and call centers to reimagine their business model, discover new ways to engage with customers and meet fast-changing regulatory compliance standards while leveraging technology. 

 

Advances in technology have also led contact centers to focus on delivering an omnichannel experience for customers — a personalized, seamless and intelligent customer interactions, be it online or via phone, text or email. 

 

(Must read: What is hyper-personalization?)

 

The Modern Contact Center

 

Today’s customers expect value-driven, tailored, contextual and sympathetic experiences across their preferred channels. While businesses need to learn how to achieve high customer satisfaction, they are continuously challenged by the need to adapt communication channels that assist them to improve customer service while streamlining internal procedures. 

 

With digital transformation, automating solutions to navigate the demands of customer experience has become significantly easier. The customer engagement space, driven by automation, has now become more real-time. Although this has led to a considerable increase in performance and efficiency, it is crucial to ensure that businesses maintain consistency and adhere to compliance standards as well. 

 

(Also read: Digital Transformation trends)

 

Fortunately, with the  rapid advancements in call center technology, organizations can leverage compliance management tools powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and automation to achieve optimal visibility into all risky operations that require compliance to industry standards.

 

Here are 7 ways AI-powered customer service and speech analytics can transform the performance of your contact center and enable you to do more with less:

 

Artificial intelligence

 

1. Boost productivity: make every agent your best one

 

In the collection industry, all that matters is how many deals your agents are able to close. This is proportional to the number of calls made by your agents. 

 

Stakeholders can be presented with useful productivity analysis, including average call times, silent analysis and peak activity hours, and then use this information to identify areas where agents can be coached to improve performance. 

 

Progress may be recorded over time, which can assist businesses in identifying areas where efficiency can be increased. This boosts agent and collector effectiveness, which ultimately leads to higher business output.

 

2. Reduce costs and increase profit

 

With more calls, higher collections, and lower customer attrition, a smart AI system will deliver in 90 days, allowing you to find better ways to execute the same thing and save money on overhead and training.

 

3. Improve customer satisfaction

 

The customer satisfaction score (CSAT) is a measurement of the customer's feedback, contentment, efficacy, and performance throughout their encounter with the agent. 

 

In this respect, AI analyzes and assesses each call objectively. These CSAT ratings are then utilized to pinpoint specific agent actions, focusing on attributes like empathy, politeness, and voice tone. This can actually help in identifying agents that use these specific skills and how much of a positive impact these have on customer interactions.

 

(Similar blog: Customer Behavioral Analytics)

 

4. Empower customers through automated, self-service apps

 

Chatbots can be integrated into any system, and when these virtual bots can handle a big portion of routine client questions and requests, agents may focus on more challenging scenarios that require some of that valuable human intelligence. The end result is improved service, enhanced automation and overall efficiency.

 

Speech Analytics

 

5. 100% call auditing

 

A voice analytics solution allows you to handle each and every call that comes into your call center, both incoming and outbound. This degree of data and analysis opens up many new possibilities:

 

• Identify key metrics that are leading to increased or decreased collections performance for each agent.

• Find key training opportunities on compliance disclosures.

• Continuously measure all aspects of proper call handling and optimized consumer experience without having to rely on a tiny statistical sample.

• Implement controls: using per-agent dashboards, ensure that each person can observe immediate feedback in support of all objectives.

 

6. Enhanced agent efficiency, better resource management

 

Agent efficiency for collections can be improved by properly constructed processes that capture data at each stage of a customer's engagement with the agent. It can be used to deliver individualized training and feedback to each collector, in addition to assisting supervisors in identifying deficiencies. 

 

Data-driven decisions are the right ones. The reliability of the data being used, on the other hand, is just as vital. Rather than wasting time looking for new agents, you may identify your current agents' weak points and personalize training to assist them overcome them.

 

(Must read: Applications of AI)

 

7. Adherence to compliance standards, like mirandizing customers (in the US)

 

In compliance, there are a lot of conflicting (and sometimes contradictory!) requirements. Owners of businesses must deal with federal, state, and local laws and regulations, as well as end-client needs, disclosures, addendums, and a closure script. 

 

This is a challenging problem in terms of training, as collectors and agents must be regularly trained and updated on the latest terminology. Continuously monitoring this process is a major challenge, and with most firms auditing less than 1% of their calls, it is almost impossible to catch training opportunities. 

 

The more an agent is focused on compliance, the less they are focused on our desired outcome: an empathetic call that results in a resolved account.

 

 

Conclusion

 

AI and speech analytics, along with other intelligent technologies, have the potential to break down call center silos and successfully revolutionize the back and front ends of contact centers. AI-powered contact centers will be at the forefront of creating superior customer happiness and experiences. 

 

(Also read: Examples of AI)

 

The opportunities this presents for improved interactions are enormous, resulting in a vastly enhanced customer experience. At the same time, compliance requirements need to be adequately understood alongside new automated communication methods to help enhance customer confidence and trust. 

 

In an extremely competitive world, the future does not necessarily belong to the businesses shouting loudest, but perhaps to those that can truly listen to their customers and learn from it to deliver outstanding service.

 

(This blog is submitted by Mr Love Chopra, Principal Architect at Provana)