THOUGHT LEADERSHIP
Can AI augment emotional intelligence in contact centres?
Jim Palmer, Chief AI Officer at Dialpad shows us how humans and robots can work together
With the rise of AI and other automation tools, enterprises have rapidly transformed their operations, and contact centres are no different. Across industries, more than 77% of leaders expect AI will provide their organisation with a competitive advantage. Against the tide of limited resources and an increasing volume of queries, contact centres have looked for technological advantages, such as chatbots or interactive voice responses (IVRs), to sustain a flow of satisfied customers. When backed by robust customer data, AI can significantly speed up query resolution by amplifying the work done by human agents. While virtual agents can be deployed to answer basic questions, AI tools can be implemented to track the general sentiment of a conversation and flag when a human agent is needed. The underlying goal of each call is customer satisfaction through query resolution. A general barrier to achieving satisfaction is miscommunication which prevents the contact centre employee from understanding what the caller hopes to gain from the call. While this could initially be written off as a lack of product service knowledge on the employee’s part, there is an underlying emotional understanding that can often serve as the bedrock for a call’s success. The role of emotional intelligence in customer satisfaction Callers want an interaction that feels individualised to address their concerns - it’s why an overwhelming 70% of customers state that they feel more loyalty to a company that offers them a personalised experience. Emotional intelligence is an essential aspect of customer interactions to reduce
misunderstanding and help customer service workers understand unique caller needs. Just as with technical proficiency and clarity, it’s a skill that can be honed and enhanced to ensure successful customer interactions. The ability to recognise, understand and manage not just their own emotions but the emotions of others is a critical factor for businesses aiming to deliver a satisfactory customer experience. Failing to connect with a customer on a personal level can result in a conversation that is mired in frustration, which could have disastrous effects on the business, with 49% of customers leaving a brand to which they’d been loyal in the past 12 months say it’s due to poor customer service experience. Conversely, a positive call experience can help a business thrive, with almost 70% of consumers purchasing more from companies that offer seamless conversational experiences. By nurturing empathetic connections with customers, businesses can foster loyalty and advocacy - and AI can help establish these connections faster than ever. Instant customer sentiment insight With the average contact centre call lasting just over five minutes, agents need to be decisive and precise in their language to ensure the interaction is a positive one. In the past, customer satisfaction was predominantly assessed with post-call surveys, meaning any lesson that could be taken from a call could only be applied in future interactions. Post-call surveys also traditionally gave a highly polarised view of customer satisfaction, with respondents tending to be either very satisfied or very dissatisfied. AI has revolutionised how contact centres gather and utilise data by integrating real-time
Jim Palmer Chief AI Officer
dialpad.com
A general barrier to achieving satisfaction is miscommuni- cation which prevents the contact centre employee from understanding what the caller
hopes to gain from the call.
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