Tag: artificial intelligence

Categories
Call Center

Don’t Forget the Human Touch

Technology May Save Money but Human Agents Make the Difference

By Peter Lyle DeHaan, Ph.D.

We’ve been hearing a lot about artificial intelligence (AI), and we’re going to hear a lot more about it. Some claim AI is the future of the call center industry, saving money and retaining business.

Others fear it’s the end of customer service as we know it. Neither is right, nor are they both wrong.

Author Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD

But AI isn’t the only technology in our call centers. We have digital assistants to help our agents and automated bots to help our customers. Before that we had interactive voice response (IVR) and auto-attendant solutions.

Regardless of the technology or the era it comes from, each innovation brought with it the inherent promise to speed resolutions and reduce labor expenses. To some degree, they accomplished this. Yet they also fell short of meeting expectations.

In most cases, however, the implementation of technology has brought with it a corresponding ire of the customers it’s supposed to help.

In some cases, technology—especially AI—can make a real mess of things. When this happens, human intervention is the only way to correct the problem. This assumes, of course, that people are available to intercede to fix technology’s error.

Here are some things human agents can do that technology can’t do or can’t do well:

Correct Miscommunication

Technology struggles to correct its mistakes. When it determines what path to take, it persists on that course even if it’s the wrong one.

Often, miscommunication devolves into such a quagmire that the simplest approach—sometimes the only one—is to terminate communication and start over later.

Yet this is an ideal time for human intervention to clarify the customer’s concern and redirect action toward the right solution. This means that human agents need to have the ability to override technology. They also need to have both the training and confidence to know when to do so.

Calm Frustrated Customers

Technology isn’t good at realizing when customers are upset and responding in a truly comforting way.

Though through algorithms, AI can detect anger or frustration, customers will likely discern any attempt to diffuse their concerns as disingenuous. This will escalate their tension, not defuse it.

A successful outcome requires a real person, someone who will listen, comprehend, and offer sympathy. Though no human agent can accomplish this all the time, their chance of success is much higher than that of a machine,

Respond to Complex Issues

Convoluted problems can escape the ability of AI to accurately comprehend and successfully navigate. This is especially true when a situation is unique, something AI has not yet encountered and never will again. Yet human ingenuity shines in these situations.

Offer Empathy

Sometimes customers feel a need to vent. Ironically, this is often over the failure of technological solutions to appropriately address their concern. Though AI can determine the need to give an apology and mimic the right words to say, can it do so with empathy?

Will the customer feel they were heard? Will the response come across as sincere?

A person has a much better chance of doing this successfully than a computer.

Conclusion

Though AI technology will continue to improve, causing fewer problems and producing more satisfyingly complete solutions, don’t plan on replacing your staff. Though you will not need as many, you will need some.

And the skill set of these super agents will carry higher requirements than current ones.

Being able to offer the human touch will distinguish contact centers from their technology-only counterparts.

In an era when technology surrounds us and threatens to overwhelm, a human customer service agent stands as a core distinction between offering solutions that are close versus ones that are comprehensive and complete.

Don’t forget to offer the personal touch of a human agent to best serve customers whenever needed.

Read more in Peter’s Sticky Series books: Sticky Leadership and Management, Sticky Sales and Marketing, and Sticky Customer Service featuring his compelling story-driven insights and tips.

Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD, is the publisher and editor-in-chief of Connections Magazine, covering the call center teleservices industry. Read his latest book, Healthcare Call Center Essentials.

Categories
Call Center

Consider How Artificial Intelligence Can Help Us in the Call Center

We Should Embrace AI as a Useful Toolset and Not Fear It

By Peter Lyle DeHaan, Ph.D.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is not a fad that will soon go away. It’s a fundamental shift in how all businesses—and even every person—will function in the future. And though you may not yet realize it, that future is here. Even if you haven’t openly invited artificial intelligence into your call center operation, it’s already arrived, albeit via circuitous points of entry.

Author and blogger Peter Lyle DeHaan

Many people already use AI and don’t even know it. Artificial intelligence helps us draft e-mail messages and compose text messages. It facilitates online searches. And it targets advertising—both the ads we receive and the ones we send. And AI works to keep us secure online. In doing these things—and many more—AI saves us time and helps us work with more effectiveness.

We’ll talk about artificial intelligence in general terms because the specifics will be out of date within days. That’s how fast artificial intelligence technology is advancing.

Consider these areas where artificial intelligence can help us in our call centers to do our jobs more effectively and efficiently.

AI Management Tools

Artificial intelligence can help us manage our call center operation and our call center staff with greater ease. One key area, for example, is in quality assurance (QA). AI can perform a QA analysis on our agents to measure the overall effectiveness of their work. This not only removes the tedium of doing so manually, but it also makes sure it is actually done and not put off. And it also does so for every call, which is something that is not feasible from a human standpoint.

This is just one example of an AI management tool that will fundamentally change how we oversee our call center staff.

Interdepartmental Interactions

While we typically think of how artificial intelligence can facilitate interactions with clients and callers, we shouldn’t overlook its potential to assist in internal communication and collaboration between departments. Consider a customer service event and the ripple effects it’s resolution causes. AI could serve to automatically notify all stakeholders and even support their work that relates to it. As appropriate AI could trigger a billing adjustment, escalate a QA report, reprogram an account, update a service record, and so on.

Agent Support

Though artificial intelligence could—and one day may—replace much of the human involvement in call center work, we’re best to view it now as supporting our agents so they can do their jobs better and faster. The above mentioned—and presently available—AI assisted email and text messaging tools are an obvious start. Though these still require agent involvement or agent approval, imagine being able to compose these messages in less time and with greater accuracy.

Customer Facing Communications

When many people think of AI in the call center, they envision frustrating bots that hamper effective communication and thwart timely resolution. Though reports of AI run amok confirm just that, it doesn’t need to be—and shouldn’t be—the case.

Chat bots are an obvious example. Though they don’t presently function well as a holistic solution and can make a mess of unusual situations, they work great as a front-end resource to solve basic problems, gather key information, and appropriately route customer requests to agents.

Now consider the same concept occurring with telephone calls. Then imagine text to speech technology producing canned responses in each operator’s voice and indistinguishable from their own speech when they need to take over a call.

Summary

We need not fear the forward march of artificial intelligence. There is much we can do to make our call centers function faster and more accurately than ever before. We’ll benefit and so will those we interact with, both inside our organization and without.

Artificial intelligence can help us, if only we will let it.

Read more in Peter’s Sticky Series books: Sticky Leadership and Management, Sticky Sales and Marketing, and Sticky Customer Service featuring his compelling story-driven insights and tips.

Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD, is the publisher and editor-in-chief of Connections Magazine, covering the call center teleservices industry. Read his latest book, Healthcare Call Center Essentials.

Categories
Telephone Answering Service

Applying Artificial Intelligence in Telephone Answering Services

Consider the Role that AI Could Play in Your TAS Operation

By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD

You may be tired of hearing about artificial intelligence (AI), but get used to it. It’s here to stay, and it will change everything. Not only will it revolutionize business and the answering service industry along with it, but it will reach into and touch every aspect of our lives. In fact, it’s already doing just that, whether we know it or not.

Here are some ways you may want to consider applying AI to your telephone answering service.

Use AI to Supplement Management and Support

AI can function in a support role, assisting the functions and departments that surround your telephone answering service operation. Already, AI is great at producing the first draft of an email or suggesting attention-grabbing subject lines. The same applies for marketing materials and ad copy. But don’t expect AI to make a perfect final draft—at least not yet—but those days are coming, and they’ll likely arrive sooner than you expect.

Look for other ways that AI can assist nonoperation departments, such as accounting, sales, marketing, and technical. These AI tools are either ready today or are close to being ready. All you need to do is find them and implement them.

Use AI to Enhance Customer Service

The same applies for customer service functions. If a concern arrives via email, AI can often make the first draft of a cogent response. All you need to do is verify and tweak.

Chatbots are another area. You’ve likely had experience with them, albeit on the user side. Imagine what AI chatbots can do for your customer service. But before you get carried away, trying to implement a comprehensive system that will cover everything, start simply and address the basics. Once that’s working fine, expand it.

Another area related to customer service is tapping AI to perform agent evaluations. This isn’t just for select calls or random calls but every call. Only outlier results that need attention—either to correct an error or celebrate a success—need to be forwarded to the agent or management.

Use AI to Better Handle Calls

Most of the work—and most of the labor—at an answering service occurs in the operations room and revolves around answering calls or handling communication for clients. This is where AI can have the biggest impact.

Start by considering how AI can better support your telephone agents to allow them to do their job more effectively, quicker, or both. But don’t stop there. Also consider service activities that you can move to AI, with agent oversight and the ability to overrule. And, of course, there are areas you can completely outsource to AI.

But Don’t Avoid It

Some people are technologically adverse. There’s nothing wrong with that; it’s who they are. They just need to realize that ignoring it won’t make it go away, and it will one day put their TAS at a disadvantage.

Consider the last services to switch from cord boards to computerized systems. Or the last providers to stop handwriting messages and start entering them into a database. Though there were holdouts—sometimes for quite a while—they eventually realized they had to embrace the technology. So, too, will be the case with AI.

Artificial Intelligence Conclusion

When it comes to artificial intelligence, the opportunities abound, almost limitless. If you can dream it, it can likely be done—or someone has already done it.

Learn more in Peter Lyle DeHaan’s book, How to Start a Telephone Answering Service.

Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD, is the publisher and editor-in-chief of TAS Trader, covering the telephone answering service industry. Check out his books How to Start a Telephone Answering Service and Sticky Customer Service.

Categories
Telephone Answering Service

How Should You View Answering Service AI?

Determine the Role Artificial Intelligence Will Play in Your Telephone Answering Service

By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD

Unless you’re intentionally ignoring it, talk of artificial intelligence (AI) is all around us. It’s hard to miss. AI is not a fad that will soon fade, a hype that will soon die down. AI is a trend that will continue to grow and become more pervasive in our everyday lives.

It’s infiltrating every industry, including telephone answering services. Given this, you may wonder how you should view answering service AI.

Author and blogger Peter Lyle DeHaan

Let’s set aside the doomsday prognosticators who foresee a future where artificial intelligence will take over our world and deem human life as inadequate and worthy of eradication.

Though some futurists view this as a slim possibility, there’s little you or I can do to stop it. And the degree to which we embrace or dismiss AI will have no bearing on the technology’s overall impact.

Therefore, instead of fearing the concept of AI on a macro level, we should consider the potential of AI on the micro level, such as on telephone answering services. Given this, the question we must ask is how should we view answering service AI?

Answering Service AI is Not Something to Fear

First, there’s no need to be afraid of using artificial intelligence in your answering service. Though we don’t understand how AI works to do what it does, we don’t need to. What we need to focus on is the results, the outcome the technology provides. The how doesn’t matter.

Answering Service AI is a Tool

Next, we should view AI as a tool. Just as a computer is a tool, the internet is a tool, and VoIP is a tool, so is AI. In the same way we evaluate the cost, the effectiveness, and the outcome of any tool we provide to our answering service, we should do the same with AI.

Can we afford AI? Will AI be effective? What results will AI provide? If the answers to this deliberation are positive, then we should look at adding this tool to our tool chest.

Note that AI is not one application, but a means to empower every application. This means we could end up with multiple AI powered tools in our answering service.

Answering Service AI Should be a Strategic Consideration

Just as with every other business decision we make, tapping AI for our answering service should be a strategic choice.

Don’t jump on the AI bandwagon without first considering its merits. Don’t let FOMO (fear of missing out) rush you into making a rash decision.

Instead, make an informed judgment based on the available facts and a careful cost-benefit analysis.

Don’t Ignore Answering Service AI

Using artificial intelligence in your answering service may be ideal for your operation and goals. Conversely it might not be the right solution for you at this time. But don’t dismiss it without first considering it.

The only wrong approach is to ignore it.

Learn more in Peter Lyle DeHaan’s book, How to Start a Telephone Answering Service.

Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD, is the publisher and editor-in-chief of TAS Trader, covering the telephone answering service industry. Check out his books How to Start a Telephone Answering Service and Sticky Customer Service.