AI for Contact Centers What Dating & Business Development Have in Common

 

Today's consumer expects proactive customer service using Omni Channel Technology, a multi-channel approach for a more seamless customer as well as agent experience.  It is no longer acceptable to spend 5 minutes navigating an IVR system.  If anything the pandemic has accelerated the "Amazon Effect", the leading ecommerce disruptor of our time, specifically in proactive customer service.  

If a customer has tried to obtain answers by chat, sent two support emails and is now calling the contact center, the agent receiving the call should already have all this information at their fingertips.  If the caller is calling from their phone number on file, the agent should already know this.  

If a customer has bought a digital product but has not logged in in 48 hours, the system should take note and anticipate that the email with the password was overlooked.  If the customer bought a new washing machine and has visited the FAQ section 12 times, perhaps an email or SMS with an 800 number might be in order. 

The root of every problem is a human problem, so it is important that contact center implementation retains the human element.  A poorly implemented chatbot is worse than no chatbot at all.  

Outsourced contact centers can be done for certain tasks but should be avoided for others.  If you are a bank, you may want to think twice about outsourcing your security center to another country, as it will create a less than favorable impression of data security.  On the other hand, level one tech support via chat can be implemented rather seamlessly from overseas. 

 AI is not replacing human operators but can be a powerful tool.  It is important that agents are trained to train the AI.  The agent should know that they are playing a key role in teaching the AI and are forming a team, with the AI taking over the repetative and mundane parts of the job  such as tagging, natural language processing, data visualization, content classification, automatic routing and tagging.  

 

John invites Jane on a date to a restaurant where he tries to impress her with his knowledge of wine. He takes the menu out of her hand and insists on ordering for her because he knows the best item on the menu. Throughout dinner he rattles off his accomplishments from his college days up until getting his MBA and making partner at the firm. In the beginning, Jane tries to chime in but John cuts her off to keep talking about himself.

At the end of the meal, John insists they share a dessert because he just “knows” that women don’t want to eat the whole dessert. (He is wrong.) He also makes “helpful” unsolicited suggestions like how Jane should change the color of her nail polish.

He is convinced that he presented himself in the best possible light and the date went swimmingly. Jane calls up her friend and asks why she wasted her time setting her up with this condescending jerk.

It’s a scenario that often plays out in dating as well as sales, regardless of gender.

The “salesperson” assumed he knew his prospect and her wants better than the prospect knew herself. He talked mostly about the product and its features (himself) and on the few rare occasions when he asked her a question, instead of listening with an intent to understand, he listened with an intent to reply.

During a discovery call, the prospect should be doing most of the talking.

Customers tend to find overeager, aggressive salespeople who don’t listen off putting. Nobody wants to listen to a monologue or sit through a one-hour power point about product features.

People want to make sure the salesperson cares and actually takes the time to listen and understands their needs. The prospect wants to know what the product or offer can do for them. “Empathetic design” is an element that is becoming more and more popular in product development.

The unarticulated needs of a prospect or market are a product development goldmine. The only way to figure it out is to actually listen and understand the customer journey with all its pain points and bottlenecks.