M+E Connections

All organisations have common challenges within their contact centres that include long hold times, high operational costs associated with long resolution times, a lack of data-driven insights that could improve quality management, and high agent turnover, according to Amazon Web Services (AWS) experts speaking May 9, during the webinar “Validating the Economic Benefits of AWS Contact Center Intelligence Solutions.”

As a result of those and other challenges, along with today’s rapidly shifting economic dynamics, businesses are increasingly using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to reduce costs and enhance those operational processes.

As an example, AI and ML automate previously manual workflows, including note-taking during phone calls, for contact centre agents and their supervisors, resulting in better performance, increased job satisfaction and decreased training costs because of reduced agent churn.

In addition, AI and ML empower more accurate customer data analysis to boost CX, and therefore business growth, according to the AWS experts.

During the webinar, Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) analyst Tony Palmer talked with AWS experts about the importance of leveraging AI and ML for CX workflows and the economic benefits of AWS Contact Center Intelligence (CCI) Solutions that include improved customer loyalty, less churn and reduced operational costs.

“In today’s business landscape, it’s really essential to engage with customers to resolve issues quickly and effectively across industries,” Palmer told viewers. “Contact centres are where many organisations interface most with their customers and their constituents and all of them must address some common challenges,” he said.

“There’s long hold times, high operational costs associated with long resolution times, a lack of data-driven insights to improve quality management and high agent turnover,” he pointed out.

His company’s research found that “improving the customer experience and increasing employee productivity are among the top considerations for justifying IT investments to organisations [and] business management teams,” he pointed out.

ESG’s research also revealed that the “overwhelming majority of respondents agree that a positive experience makes them more likely to make another purchase and nearly two thirds say just one bad experience will lead them to consider switching to a competitor –- and this is critical,” he said.

“Most organisations we surveyed are turning to technologies like chatbots and automation to improve the customer experience,” he went on to say. The volume of data today, meanwhile, is “so large that organisations can’t analyse it manually, so they’re increasingly using artificial intelligence technologies to get a handle on their customer experience data,” he explained.

Taking that into account, it’s “not surprising that AI, ML, business intelligence and analytics are among the top technologies that organisations expect to increase their spending on over the next 12 months,” he said.

Palmer interviewed two customers who he said integrated AWS CCI Solutions into their existing contact centres and are seeing benefits as a result, he said, before introducing Dustin Hubbard, president of Archway Software, and Nicki Susman, senior data scientist at Principal Financial Group (PFG).

Hubbard pointed out that Archway started out as a innovation lab inside of Washington Federal Bank about four years ago. “Our goal at the time was to actually help the bank deliver incredible customer experiences using modern technologies and the work we were doing was deemed so successful that the organisation actually decided to spin us out into our own” software firm that he said “enables us to bring the same technology to other banks and credit unions across the country.”

PFG was started in 1879 as an insurance company and it is now a member of Fortune 500 and a global investment manager leader, Susman said, adding: “We process approximately 10 million calls annually.”

She is a senior data scientist and technical lead of her AI team that she said specialises in natural language processing and initiatives. “Specifically, we’re focusing on the Contact Center Intelligence initiatives right now, which is why I’m here today.”

To watch the entire webinar, click here.