The Power of Contact Center Automation Tools
Contact centers have long been a critical part of business operations and the customer service experience. Today, companies implement contact center automation tools to meet rising customer expectations and increase the productivity of their human agents.
Intelligent automation significantly improves processes for contact center operations, benefiting customers, call center agents, and call center managers. It’s time to embrace the power of contact center automation tools.
What Is a Contact Center Automation Tool?
Contact centers, or call centers, handle inbound and outbound customer service inquiries on a wide range of scales, depending on the size of the operation. But regardless of your organization’s size, your contact center plays a vital role in the customer experience.
Contact center automation tools take over routine inbound and outbound requests and interactions.
They can include technical algorithms or artificial intelligence-powered tools, like chatbots, voice bots, or robotic process automation (RPA).
4 Benefits of Call Center Automation Tools
Consistency is the key to maintaining customer satisfaction, and technology can help maintain that consistency across customer experiences at scale. Mid-sized contact center automation tools benefit both your agents and your customers in a few key ways.
Improve Overall Customer Experience
Most people would rather avoid waiting on hold to talk to an agent. They want to hop on and off the phone quickly after efficiently resolving their problem.
Two-thirds of people in a customer service survey by Arise said they wouldn’t wait more than two minutes before hanging up. More than 13% of people said that no amount of hold time is acceptable.
By using automation tools, agents help people solve minor problems independently or with reduced wait time. They can also be deployed to guarantee that your customers receive timely callbacks with answers to their more challenging issues.
Facilitate Faster Call Resolutions
Going back and forth on an issue or request increases the likelihood of an unsatisfied customer. Using automated processes such as conversational AI or interactive voice response enables people to quickly resolve their simple requests without waiting in a queue or for agent intervention. And your agents spend their valuable time addressing more complex challenges.
Boost Morale and Satisfaction for Your Agents
Agent job satisfaction is now central to nearly every other metric in your call center. High job satisfaction positively correlates with customer satisfaction and is negatively associated with absenteeism and turnover.
Whether your agents are new or seasoned, spending too much time on repetitive tasks can tank their morale and send customer satisfaction plummeting.
That’s why in-person and remote work agents alike benefit from automation that connects customers with the best available agents for their inquiries. AI-powered tools also handle minor requests, freeing agents for more crucial tasks.
Low Code / No-Code Automation Contact Center
Typically, implementing software means introducing new and complex code into your systems and ensuring that everything runs smoothly. But what if you or your team members don’t know how to code?
By using low code / no-code automation tools, you can avoid spending hours learning to code or overwhelming your technology department trying to incorporate a new process. These tools create the strategies you need—even complicated ones—with little to no coding required. Low code / no-code automation allows new methods to start faster and saves you much-needed time.
Identifying What Automations to Use for Your Center
Is your company interested in automation tools but not sure how to determine what automation to use in your contact center? Don’t be overwhelmed by the variety of contact center automation use cases. There is no one-size-fits-all solution, so you determine the best option—or combination of options—for your call center based on its needs.
SMS Automation
These days, we rely on our phones to receive all sorts of information.
And SMS automation is one way for businesses to quickly and easily convey information to customers through a short text message. These texts can remind customers of upcoming appointments, give updates on deliveries, or share customer satisfaction surveys.
SMS automation can even conduct a brief conversation via a customer service bot or RPA. The SMS approach creates countless opportunities to improve your customer experience.
Conversational AI
Conversational AI transforms your customer-agent pipeline as it separates easy-to-manage requests in the queue. This tool uses natural language processing (NLP) to interpret messages from your customers and produce relevant responses. Like chatbots, conversational AI serves customers at all hours.
This tool is excellent for customers who have simple requests that can be resolved by generating a quick response. Deployed effectively, conversational AI reduces the need for agent interactions, increases the likelihood of first call resolutions, and elevates customer satisfaction.
Virtual Queuing
Adding virtual queues to your processes allows customers to drop off the line with the assurance that they will receive a callback. Customers then go about their day until an agent contacts them. Virtual queuing also benefits your agents, who stay organized, move efficiently through calls and avoid feeling overwhelmed.
Automated Calls
Automated calls for contact centers allow agents to serve customers better while reducing their workload. Agents navigate this tool by entering relevant criteria and data, accompanied by triggers prompting the technology to call customers automatically depending on certain obstacles or requests.
These triggers might include:
- Requesting a call back to solve a problem.
- If customers haven’t engaged with your software or services for an extended period.
- When someone’s subscription or contract is coming up for renewal.
Contact Center Automation Tools
Any modern call center software platform should have contact center automation tools built-in. We know the choices can be overwhelming, so we made a list of contact center automation tools on the market to allow you to easily make comparisons.
SharpenCX
We offer call center software that delivers engaging agent and customer experiences anywhere, any time. We help you unify your communications and contact center solution into a single, optimized, remote work-friendly experience.
Our multi-modal, omnichannel platform routes, measures, and records customers consistently on every channel, providing the data you need in one user-friendly interface.
Your customers enjoy a consistent experience, no matter how they reach out, and your agents do, too.
And no matter whether you are on-site, remote or hybrid—with our software, all your agents need is an internet browser.
So, if our software and user interface are so good, why are we listing our competitors? We want to empower you to make informed decisions for your business.
Five9
Five9 provides a comprehensive set of tools, applications and cloud-hosted services for contact centers of all sizes. It also eliminates the need to be on-premise and allows agents to work remotely from anywhere.
Genesys Cloud CX
Genesys Cloud CX manages cloud-based and hybrid software to contact centers and improves customer experience for mid-size and large businesses. The platform helps maintain customer relationships while improving productivity in teams.
Dixa
Dixa monitors interactions, answers complex questions, manages chatbots and more by prioritizing the customer experience and helping companies improve their performance at the same time.
Vocalcom
Vocalcom provides omnichannel cloud contact center software for customer service, sales/telemarketing and debt collection. Companies can develop and enact cloud and on-premise technologies to improve customer interactions.
Contact Center Automation Trends
These omnichannel support tools make contact center processes more efficient while helping agents improve their performances. Contact center-assisted automation allows agents to immediately engage with customers who genuinely need personal assistance to resolve their issues.
On many customer service websites today, visitors encounter chat bubbles that pop up and offer to help users get more information, solve a problem, or contact a representative before they ever call a contact center. Chatbots continue to improve in capability and sophistication, with features like text-to-speech and conversational dialogue connections..
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) tools handle repetitive tasks that would otherwise occupy your call center agents’ precious time. Like conversational AI tools, RPA frees up agents to focus on vital work while improving the customer experience.
Precision Routing greatly impacts the customer experience by using AI to get your customer to the best agent for the task at hand.
Self-service channels continue to increase in popularity with companies and customers. And when human agents do connect with customers, AI and other technologies often assist them.
The best part? Software development is constantly progressing, so new, more advanced tools will become available in the future. We continuously innovate to make your agents’ jobs easier and more streamlined through automated tools.
Contact Center Automation Is Changing the Industry
Contact center automation evolved significantly during the pandemic and continues to improve. These automation tools make processes simpler for agents, positively influence their performance, boost morale and improve customer experience and satisfaction.
It’s time to deliver engaging agent and customer experiences with automation — anytime, anywhere.