As contact center managers look around for how to improve the conversational experience their organizations deliver, they run into an all-encompassing theme: AI. Artificial intelligence has become a staple in the conversational platform space, and companies must find the vendor that specializes in it if they’re going to join the AI race. In an effort to assist enterprises in their search for a conversational platform, Gartner published the “Market Guide for Conversational Platforms”*, in which Nuance is listed. In studies such as this one, conversational AI is a key topic of interest.
Why is AI so important to customer engagement?
AI enables prediction.
Customers love to be greeted by name and appreciate being offered experiences contextually relevant to their most recent interactions. Artificial intelligence enables brands to recommend the next best action to satisfy a person’s need through an IVR, virtual assistant or live agent. It also minimizes churn through identifying and tracking signals that a person may be unhappy based on activity, words, tone and sentiment. Proactive action can then be taken by offering relevant and useful assistance, thereby reducing effort and ensuring efficient use of resources.
AI enables conversation.
Artificial intelligence lets people engage in a natural way through text or speech to gain immediate help. It enables information (through text-to-speech and natural language understanding) to be understood and delivered, deriving concepts and meaning from user intents and tapping into databases as necessary. Furthermore, AI powers machine learning whether it’s self-service (automated) or assisted service (live).
AI enables analysis.
Artificial intelligence enables organizations to process oceans of data generated by interactions within and across channels, analyzing relevance, patterns, preferences, behavior, sentiment and intents. The analysis of speech, voice of the customer and customer journeys improves and makes more secure conversational interactions.
If an organization finds the right partner for their AI initiatives, they will experience a growing list of benefits:
- Customer experience that saves time and effort
- Personalized and spot-on information delivered every time
- Development of new products and services
- Increased Net Promoter Score
- New and increased revenue streams
- Increased customer lifetime value
Nuance AI expert Tom Hebner talks about the exciting prospects for AI in customer service in the following interview:
