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artificial intelligence

AI set to impact customer experience in financial services

 960 640 Stuart O'Brien
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New research reveals that the majority (52%) of financial services employees feel positive or very positive about the growth of AI, and 62% say learning to use new technologies increases their motivation at work and improves customer experience. More than half (56%) are also confident they have the necessary skills to work with more AI tools.

The research, which polled 500 financial services employees (banking and insurance) in the UK and Ireland, was commissioned by payroll and HR software provider Zellis and suggests most employees are set to embrace new technologies as adoption increases across the banking and insurance industries.

Other notable findings show that 42% of respondents believe AI will help them to learn new skills, a figure that rises to 60% amongst those who work for larger financial services organisations (+1,000 employees). Thirty-eight percent also believe new technologies will increase their productivity and efficiency at work.

Financial services employees are also more comfortable with the idea of using AI for certain tasks over others. Across the board, respondents are most confident using it to recommend products and services (60%), perform admin tasks such as note taking (58%), and review documents and applications (57%). Confidence drops notably when it comes to using AI for higher risk activities, however: those who work in banking would be least confident in using AI to make investment decisions or inform lending agreements (36% and 28% respectively), and insurance workers are least comfortable in using it to inform underwriting decisions (41%) or handle customer queries (38%).

Overall, the research presents a positive outlook for financial services companies looking to increase their adoption and application of new technologies, though some concerns remain: one in ten feels very negative about the growth of AI, 22% believe the adoption of AI will create difficulties and challenges, and nearly a quarter (23%) are not confident they have the necessary skills to work with new technologies.

Commenting on the findings, Rebecca Mullins, Director of HCM Solutions at Zellis, said: “This research confirms that the majority of financial services employees are primed to embrace new technologies, and that spells good news for the industry’s future success. AI is creating opportunities for banks and building societies to enhance customer experiences through personalisation, while insurance companies are leveraging AI to gather and assess data more quickly for use in decision making and underwriting.”

Mullins continued: “The opportunities are immense but to thrive in this shifting landscape, employers must now focus on identifying how and where to optimise outcomes as new tools and platforms are introduced.”

The research also asked about respondents’ use of current technologies, and while the majority say their existing tools are easy to understand and use (67%), and make their work easier (66%), a smaller number were less positive: two in ten respondents feel frustrated because their current technology is not reliable, does not improve the customer experience, and fails to increase customer spend.

“By leveraging these critical insights to better understand employees’ needs, wants, and concerns, financial services providers will be much better positioned to tackle issues of employee motivation and confidence – and crucially, build technology skills where they are most needed,” concluded Mullins.

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

AI will enable contact centre agents ‘to become true brand guardians’

 960 640 Stuart O'Brien
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A new report has highlighted the essential role of hybrid and remote contact centre agents, the expected impact of artificial intelligence (AI), and agents’ readiness to act as brand guardians in the face of evolving consumer demands.

Calabrio surveyed 400 contact center managers from across 10 countries, 4 age groups, and 6 industries. While there is much debate in the market, this report’s response is clear: AI won’t be used to entirely replace agents.

In fact, over two-thirds of contact center managers predict an increase in the number of agents over the next decade and believe AI’s greatest promise is its ability to make agents’ jobs easier and more productive.

However, managers expressed that agents are not yet ready to meet the demands of an AI-fueled future. If contact centers are not giving agents the skills to adapt and develop, they are already falling behind.

“The role of technology, including AI, is poised to gain even greater momentum in the contact center—we’re already seeing customers embrace automation and AI-fueled analytics to maximise their operations,” said Kevin Jones, President and Chief Executive Officer, Calabrio. “But when technology removes a large portion of the administrative tasks from humans, agents will need to adapt to embrace complex customer inquiries and become true brand guardians.”

According to contact center managers, AI has the potential to optimize business processes and create visibility and efficiencies. Managers ranked these features of AI as most impactful:

  • Augmenting agent and manager productivity (25%)
  • Optimizing forecasting and scheduling (20%)
  • Measuring and understanding contact center productivity (20%)
  • AI-driven chatbot services to customers (20%)

This focus on how AI can improve productivity is critical as customer experience (CX) organizations are looking for ways to boost productivity post-pandemic. Just 49% of managers believe that remote workers are meeting productivity expectations today, which is 24% lower than in 2020.

97% of consumers agree that customer service interactions have a direct impact on brand loyalty—which directly correlates to brand revenue. With the advent of AI, the significance of delivering an effective, efficient, and personalized CX has never been more attainable.

With automation becoming the new normal, contact center managers recognize a greater need for critical thinking (top selected) and adaptability to change (second top) among future agents. Yet today, these skills are most frequently identified as lacking, and the top skills impacted when an agent is stressed or disengaged. Managers must bridge this gap through targeted training and development programs, another area where AI can assist.

Training and skills development emerge as top strategies for attracting and retaining talented agents for both current (35%) and future (30%) success. While acknowledging the need for progress, the report reveals that only 45% of contact center managers believe their agents currently possess all the required skills. This significant gap underscores the urgency of investing in comprehensive training initiatives.

Photo by Petr Macháček on Unsplash

Examining the impact of AI on Contact Centre and Customer Experience

 960 640 Stuart O'Brien
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Artificial Intelligence (AI) is revolutionising various industries, and its impact on the contact centre and customer experience sectors is profound. AI-powered technologies are transforming how businesses interact with customers, enhancing efficiency, personalisation, and overall customer satisfaction. Here, we explore the ways in which AI is impacting the call centre and customer experience sectors, reshaping the way businesses handle customer interactions…

Intelligent Virtual Assistants
AI-powered virtual assistants, such as chatbots, are transforming the call centre landscape. These intelligent systems can handle routine customer queries, provide instant responses, and assist with basic problem-solving. AI-driven chatbots can handle multiple customer interactions simultaneously, reducing wait times and improving response rates. They provide 24/7 support, enhancing customer experience and freeing up human agents to focus on more complex tasks.

Natural Language Processing and Sentiment Analysis
AI technologies, particularly natural language processing (NLP) and sentiment analysis, are improving customer interactions. NLP enables systems to understand and interpret customer inquiries, allowing for more accurate and relevant responses. Sentiment analysis helps businesses gauge customer emotions and sentiment, enabling tailored responses and proactive measures to address customer concerns. This AI-driven analysis enhances the overall customer experience by providing personalized and empathetic support.

Predictive Analytics and Personalisation
AI-powered predictive analytics help businesses analyze customer data to anticipate needs and personalize interactions. By leveraging AI algorithms, businesses can understand customer preferences, predict future buying behavior, and offer tailored recommendations. This level of personalization enhances customer satisfaction and loyalty, as customers feel understood and valued by the business.

Call Routing and Intelligent Call Routing
AI-enabled call routing systems use algorithms to match customers with the most suitable agents based on their needs and requirements. By analyzing customer data, such as previous interactions and purchase history, AI systems ensure that customers are directed to agents with the appropriate skills and knowledge. Intelligent call routing improves first-call resolution rates, reduces call transfer times, and enhances overall customer experience.

Voice Recognition and Natural Language Processing in Voice Assistants
AI-powered voice recognition and natural language processing technologies are revolutionizing voice assistants in call centres. Voice assistants can understand spoken requests, interpret intentions, and provide relevant information or assistance. These systems offer a more intuitive and convenient way for customers to interact with businesses, enhancing the customer experience and reducing call handling times.

Data Analytics and Customer Insights
AI-driven data analytics provide businesses with valuable customer insights. By analyzing vast amounts of customer data, AI algorithms identify patterns, preferences, and trends. This information helps businesses make informed decisions, refine their products or services, and improve the customer experience. Data-driven insights enable businesses to deliver more targeted and personalized solutions, ultimately enhancing customer satisfaction.

The impact of AI on the call centre and customer experience sectors in the UK is transformative. From intelligent virtual assistants and sentiment analysis to predictive analytics and personalized interactions, AI technologies are reshaping how businesses engage with customers. By leveraging AI-powered solutions, businesses can improve response times, personalise customer interactions, and deliver a seamless and satisfying customer experience.

However, it is important to strike the right balance between automation and human touch to maintain genuine and empathetic customer interactions.

Embracing AI in the call centre and customer experience sectors allows businesses in the UK to stay competitive, enhance customer satisfaction, and drive long-term success in an increasingly digital and customer-centric era.

Cyberattacks on major organisations ‘highlight AI vulnerabilities’

 960 640 Stuart O'Brien
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The cyber landscape continues to evolve as major organisations like British Airways, Boots, and the BBC face the aftermath of a crippling cyber attack.

The battle against cyberattacks seems to have been lost, with vulnerabilities in AI becoming a potential future target for those trying to steal personal data, according to analysts at GlobalData.

David Bicknell, Principal Analyst, Thematic Intelligence at GlobalData, said: “The ingenuity behind these attacks is beyond the capability of most enterprises to prevent occurring. They can only take steps to be as resilient as possible. These attacks are tried and tested perhaps more than many realize.”

Analysis by Kroll suggests the Clop ransomware gang has been looking for ways to exploit a now-patched zero-day vulnerability in the MOVEit Transfer managed file transfer (MFT) solution since 2021.

Bicknell added: “The battle to prevent these sorts of attacks from occurring has already been lost. What is important now is for security specialists – companies, researchers, security vendors, and governments –to put their best efforts into limiting as far as possible the use of artificial intelligence (AI), including generative AI, by hackers for offensive purposes.

“Events this week demonstrated that security researchers can too easily break through so-called guardrails instituted in AI software and manipulate the software into ignoring safety restraints and then revealing private information. If they are not controlled, these vulnerabilities will lead to future AI-driven cyberattacks.”

Rajesh Muru, Principal Analyst, Global Enterprise Cybersecurity Lead at GlobalData, said: “This is a classic case of insufficient risk management posture across company supply chains. Risk management compliance guidelines like NIST go some way to address supply chain cybersecurity risks. However, both user and supplier initiatives around cybersecurity are just not sophisticated enough to drive visibility across the complete supply chain.

“This often leads to end-user enterprises not having visibility on the security posture across the complete supply chain and, more importantly, sufficient time to react.

“The irony of all of this is that Progress very much sells on the premise of secure transferability of sensitive data with MOVEit. The product itself has strong security features, covering cryptographic tamper-evident Logging, Regulatory/Compliance Support (PCI, HIPAA, SOC2, GDPR), and Gateway Reverse Proxy.

“Therefore, it just shows that, even now, with developments in AI and the sheer volume of use cases for it, the question is, is the world moving into a darker place with the potential for adversarial machine learning attacks through vulnerabilities?”

Amy DeCarlo, Principal Analyst, Global IT Hosted and Managed Services at GlobalData, noted: “Clop allegedly exploited a vulnerability in the file transfer software MOVEit to tap personal identifiable information (PII) including names, addresses and banking information.

“This doxware incident, in which instead of cybercriminals encrypting data and demanding ransom in exchange for a decryption key, they threaten to publish the information, is one of a steadily increasing stream of similar incidents.

“Prevention is critical. Organizations need to make sure they are running the most current anti-virus software. Another important defense is end-user education. Attackers often use phishing and other social engineering tactics to breach an enterprise.”

Do you specialise in Artificial Intelligence for contact centres? We want to hear from you!

 960 640 Stuart O'Brien
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Each month on Contact Centres Briefing we’re shining the spotlight on a different part of the customer care market – and in June we’re focusing on Artificial Intelligence.

It’s all part of our ‘Recommended’ editorial feature, designed to help customer care industry buyers find the best products and services available today.

So, if you’re a supplier of Artificial Intelligence solutions and would like to be included as part of this exciting new shop window, we’d love to hear from you – for more info, contact Mark Connell on m.connell@forumevents.co.uk.

Here are the areas we’ll be covering, month by month:

Jun – Artificial Intelligence
Jul – Virtual Call/Contact Centres
Aug – Training & Development
Sep – Knowledge Management
Oct – Web Self Service/Chat
Nov – Display Boards
Dec – CRM
Jan – Agent Coaching & Monitoring
Feb – Analytics
Mar – Call Centre Technology
Apr – Automated Customer Satisfaction
May – Social Media

For more information on any of the above, contact Mark Connell on m.connell@forumevents.co.uk.

The implications of AI and ChatGPT on customer experience

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The impact of ChatGPT on the business technology world has generated a lot of buzz, but does the reality live up to the hype? And what does it really mean for the future of work, customer experience, and Communications Platform-as-a-Service (CPaaS) solutions?

For years, technology experts have been discussing the growing prominence of large language models (LLMs) and deep learning. However, the public launch of ChatGPT has captured the imagination of millions of people. Many technology and business writers are claiming that ChatGPT has the potential to replace jobs, while others suggest that it will fundamentally transform how we work and think. While some of the hype surrounding ChatGPT may be warranted, there are also several areas where it falls short.

Machines and Humans Working Together

LLMs and humans will likely collaborate in the future. The exact form this collaboration will take is difficult to predict, but it is clear that LLMs will bring new levels of productivity to a wide range of employees without completely replacing jobs. Additionally, LLMs will change the types of technology we use and broaden access to them, while also transforming the way companies and developers create new digital solutions as models learn to write their own software.

Leveraging LLMs for Enhanced Customer Experience

LLMs and other generative AI technologies will bring about significant changes across industries. However, the effects will be particularly noticeable in certain sectors and occupations, including customer experience (CX), where ChatGPT and other LLMs are expected to shape the evolution of CPaaS capabilities. There are three key reasons why LLMs are particularly well-suited for CPaaS:

  1. Chatbots, which are frequently used in customer-facing roles, operate within a structured environment where they respond to specific queries about a particular business or product. Chatbots also tend to work in conjunction with human agents and transfer the conversation when a query is too intricate to manage. This CX scenario is an excellent match for ChatGPT’s existing capabilities.
  2. While messaging chatbots have already introduced intelligent automation to CPaaS, the integration of LLMs will take their capabilities to new heights. However, even the best LLMs cannot handle every situation, and human intervention is still necessary so brands will still need CPaaS tools that can help deliver a smooth, contextual handover. Additionally, personalized content is becoming increasingly important, and LLMs and other generative AI tools can rapidly personalize outbound communications in various formats.
  3. ChatGPT’s ability to write and debug conventional coding languages has garnered significant attention, but its potential extends beyond that. LLMs can be instrumental in programming workflows, processes, and customer journeys, providing value for CPaaS developers in terms of speed and efficiency.

Webex: Powering generative AI solutions

Webex by Cisco, known for its award-winning Enterprise CPaaS platform, Webex Connect, is already complementing its in-house AI functionality with Large Language Models (LLM) and other advances in generative AI, including ChatGPT to accelerate response times and boost innovation. Their latest bot-agent chat summarization functionality facilitates a smooth contextual handover between chatbots and human agents enabling agents to resolve problems and address issues quicker. Users of the platform are also able to leverage generative AI to return code making it easy for non-IT specialists to create, update, and iterate journeys. Generative AI is also being used within one of the business’ applications to quickly produce high-quality content with minimal human input. Users can create copy options for email subject lines that marketers and content creators can leverage to test and tune their campaigns.

To learn more about the latest updates and AI innovations to Webex Connect click here. Alternatively get in touch here.

Do you specialise in Artificial Intelligence? We want to hear from you!

 960 640 Stuart O'Brien
By:
0

Each month on Contact Centres Briefing we’re shining the spotlight on a different part of the customer care market – and in June we’re focusing on Artificial Intelligence.

It’s all part of our ‘Recommended’ editorial feature, designed to help customer care industry buyers find the best products and services available today.

So, if you’re a supplier of Artificial Intelligence solutions and would like to be included as part of this exciting new shop window, we’d love to hear from you – for more info, contact Carly Walker on c.walker@forumevents.co.uk.

Here are the areas we’ll be covering, month by month:

Jun – Artificial Intelligence
Jul – Virtual Call/Contact Centres
Aug – Training & Development
Sep – Knowledge Management
Oct – Web Self Service/Chat
Nov – Display Boards
Dec – CRM

For more information on any of the above, contact Carly Walker on c.walker@forumevents.co.uk.

Contact Centre Masterclass: How to Turn AI into ROI and loyal customers

 960 640 Stuart O'Brien
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Advances in AI Automation through Conversational Artificial Intelligence are enabling companies to provide high quality customer service at scale while also helping call centres achieve significant cost savings.

But the AI topic has been around for years so how do you actually achieve the promise of Conversational AI in your contact centre today?

Join this session to learn about:

  • The top use cases for AI and how they will help you re-imagine your agent roles and customer experience
  • How to build your business case for AI to demonstrate the cost savings and growth that could be gained from investments
  • See a live demonstration of the leading tools for Self Service, Insights and real-time Agent Assist to serve your customers better than ever before.

To provide a more personalised experience during the session, spaces are limited.

Click Here To Register Today

WEBINAR REWIND: The future of AI in the contact centre

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Don’t worry if you missed last week’s insightful webinar about the future of AI in the contact centre – You can now re-watch the entire session online.

The in-depth discussion saw Paul Lasserre (Global Segment Lead for Applied AI solutions, AWS) explore the maturity of AI in the CX space, the key barriers to AI adoption, and the top predictions for the future of AI in the contact centre.

Contact centres worldwide are adopting AI technology to reimagine the customer journey and empower agents to deliver faster, more accurate customer service. Yet despite 89% of CX professionals recognising the importance of leveraging AI in the contact centre, only 14% of organizations consider themselves “transformational” in employing AI to do the heavy lifting for their business.

The session explore the obstacles organizations face on their journey to AI maturity and how can these barriers be overcome as automation becomes a CX standard.

Click Here To Watch Again

WEBINAR: The future of AI in the contact centre

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Tuesday, September 14, 2021, 10 a.m. BST

Join talkdesk for a virtual discussion with Paul Lasserre (Global Segment Lead for Applied AI solutions, AWS) to explore the maturity of AI in the CX space, the key barriers to AI adoption, and the top predictions for the future of AI in the contact centre.

Contact centres worldwide are adopting AI technology to reimagine the customer journey and empower agents to deliver faster, more accurate customer service. Yet despite 89% of CX professionals recognising the importance of leveraging AI in the contact centre, only 14% of organizations consider themselves “transformational” in employing AI to do the heavy lifting for their business.

What are the obstacles organizations face on their journey to AI maturity? And how can these barriers be overcome as automation becomes a CX standard?

Sign up to explore how businesses are adopting AI and the top predictions for the future AI in the contact centre.

Click Here To Register