Insights for Retail Contact Centers: How to Crawl, Walk, Run with AI

Insights for Retail Contact Centers: How to Crawl, Walk, Run with AI

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In uncertain economic times, agility is key. The pandemic accelerated the use of AI in retail contact centers, but many are still struggling to adapt to the digital era and constant shifts in consumer preferences. Retail call centers around the world witnessed human agents’ limits when faced with high call volume. 

Luckily there are tools to combat unexpected spikes in demand, which are more often combined with reductions in agent supply. 

Yes, AI is still new and evolving. Despite its current state, its ability to reduce operational costs, personalize the customer experience, provide actionable analytics, and increase customer agent efficiency can not be matched. 

Knowing how to implement this popular technology can elevate your organization’s customer service. And if you are looking to be part of this digital transformation, then you’ve landed on the right page.

Learning how to crawl with AI in your retail contact center

You likely have either heard of Conversational AI or have interacted with it already. Yet it is still underutilized. Albeit, implementing it can be a very daunting experience, but maybe there is also a sense that it’s still in its infancy stage.

Maybe we should start by reminding you of the early stages of Interactive voice response (IVR) and its success story. I’m sure you’re familiar with (IVR). Most of us (if not all of us) have interacted with this form of AI anytime we make a doctor’s appointment, call the bank, make a utility payment, you get the idea. You know, the moment when you answer recorded questions such as what language you speak, your name, account number, etc. 

Yes, it is true that this does not give AI a good first impression, especially when you’ve had the wonderful experience of having to repeat information, more than once. But this technology has come a long way. These systems are pretty efficient now, and if you call in today you can expect an initial inquiry to be complete in less than two minutes—without even waiting to speak to a live agent. 

Knowing how to implement AI  in your retail contact center can elevate your organization's customer service.

The next thing to decide is what level of AI you want your chatbot to utilize. It’s nearly impossible to equip your organization with all of the capabilities as it concerns a jack-of-all-trades contact center. To decide on the best possible Conversational AI solution, leveraging partnerships becomes a key factor in managing the cost of the overall deployment.

It’s about baby steps – Developing chatbots and virtual agents

Start with developing a chatbot. You can deliver high-quality customer service with an increasingly customized live chat in real-time. Simply set up quick answers to repetitive queries, and when the moment arises, you can transfer more complex queries, along with customer data, to agents. 

It is extremely important to simplify the agent’s experience. By automating tasks you can make it easier for agents to do their job and exceed customer expectations. The importance of the agent and conversational AI platforms is ever-evolving, slowly enabling virtual agents to complete more complex tasks with ease and the ability to learn from human interaction. This will be key for contact center expansion.

Virtual agents and chatbots collect information upfront, eliminating blind transfers so your agents are equipped with the information they need, when they need it. For a seamless agent experience, empower your workforce with the ability to engage customers on channels of choice from one interface that integrates conversational AI and NLP via Voice, Email, and Webchat.

The benefits of chatbots are endless:

  • Increase lead generation
  • Comprehensive analytics
  • Improve Support + FAQ
  • 25/7 Availability

No one likes waiting. With AI enabled software you can also reduce wait times and provide answers in real-time, which has been proven to improve customer satisfaction. Most customers, especially millennials, want to be able to solve problems on their own through self-service instead of having to hop on a phone call where you have to interact with IVR. And that’s where chatbots can help.

Now run, Forrest, run! Analytics from AI

Analytics derived from AI can drive revenue and consistently deliver productive and positive call outcomes. This dynamic duo gave rise to predictive behavioral routing, which takes this technology to the next level, enabling companies to match call center customers with personality models that help route customers with agents who are best able to handle those specific personality types. Now a dreaded call becomes a personalized customer service experience.

Personalization is made possible with unified cloud data

Leverage a unified cloud platform. If rolling out a conversation AI game plan seems like a daunting task, take advantage of pre-built components that work out-of-the-box and make scaling conversational design easy, for any use-case or industry. LiveVox can help. We make it easy for you. Anybody that can point and click can create their own unique and customized customer service chatbots on the LiveVox platform.

Retail contact center AI tools like virtual agents and chatbots collect information upfront, eliminating blind transfers so your agents are equipped with the information they need, when they need it.

Conversational AI can be the antidote to labor shortages — and will be the current de facto call center response tool. Ultimately leading to higher customer expectations. Given the fact that COVID-19 is here to stay, contact centers need to be nimble enough to withstand more demand, but less supply. AI call centers will undoubtedly provide a smoother experience for everyone in your company, resulting in better customer support overall.

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About LiveVox

LiveVox (Nasdaq: LVOX) is a proven cloud CCaaS platform that helps business leaders redefine customer engagement and transform their contact center’s performance. Decision-makers use LiveVox to improve customer experience, boost agent productivity, empower their managers, and enhance their system orchestration capabilities. Everything needed to deliver game-changing results can be seamlessly integrated and configured to maximize your success: Omnichannel Communications, AI, a Contact Center CRM, and Workforce Engagement Management tools.

For more than 20 years, clients of all sizes and industries have trusted LiveVox’s scalable and reliable cloud platform to power billions of omnichannel interactions every year. LiveVox is headquartered in San Francisco, with international offices in Medellin, Colombia and Bangalore, India.

To stay up to date with everything LiveVox, follow us @LiveVox, visit www.livevox.com or call one of our specialists at (844) 207-6663.

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