Delivering trust through collaborative intelligence

Jonathan Rosenberg at Five9 argues that collaborative intelligence is the key to empowering truly authentic customer experiences

 

Good customer service is based on trust and authenticity. When a customer makes contact, they have typically exhausted all other options. Google searches, online forums and FAQs have left them frustrated and in need of a sympathetic ear to fix their issue.

 

But when users reach an artificial intelligence (AI) system when they should reach an empathetic human, or reach a human when they should reach efficient AI, service can seem less genuine. Frustration can take over.

 

Currently, 36% of customers opt for virtual agents or self-service chat to get information and answers quicker, but when dealing with a sensitive or pressing problem, they desire a more human connection.

 

Yet, with a core part of customer service relying on human-to-human connection and empathy, it’s important to find the right balance between human and automated service. Transparency, authenticity, and trust remain vital when designing customer journeys.

 

Businesses should follow these best practices when deploying AI, to remain authentic and retain customers.

 

Tricking customers shatters trust

Breaking customer trust costs money. In fact, 53% of consumers said that they have stopped purchasing from a brand after a loss of trust and 44% of global consumers will spend at least $500 or more each year with the brands they trust most.

 

Attempting to pass an automated voice off as human and anthropomorphising chatbots can be a recipe for poor customer experience in high-emotion scenarios. Many people can feel misled once they discover they have been communicating with AI.

 

Rising living costs, travel disruption, and extreme weather serve as just a few recent examples of challenges that require authentic, human interactions. 76% state the importance of brands showing empathy, understanding their frustrations and valuing what is really important to them – in essence, providing an authentic human connection and not being tricked into a conversation with AI.

 

Collaborative intelligence maintains authenticity

Pulling together the right balance of human empathy and judgment, with the speed and scale of artificial intelligence, is crucial to handle the increasing volume of sensitive contacts.

 

This new shift to humans and AI working together in a collaborative and intelligent way empowers agents rather than replacing them.

 

Collaborative intelligence offers the best of both worlds for customer service. The initial contact is handled by an IVA, able to autonomously deal with the quick, listen-search-retrieve activities, such as order updates or opening hours.

 

However, the IVA will identify the most urgent cases, verify a customer’s identity, and gather contextual details to feed through to a human agent in real-time. Agent-assist technology pulls customer history, gives instant context and additional information needed to deal with complex cases, and provides agents with guidance.

 

As a result, contact centers can continue to provide authentic human connections when it matters most. This collaborative intelligence gives service agents deeper satisfaction in their roles (making them happier), reduces costs (making the business owner happier), and speeds up customer service (making customers happier too).

 

The new role of the human agent

With collaborative intelligence, the role of human agents will continue to evolve. 73% of call centers have noted an increase in agent turnover rates according to a study released this year.  However, weaving in the role of IVAs and collaborative intelligence to support human agents offers a vital solution to combat this attrition.

 

Put simply, AI helps agents to do their jobs better. It gives them consistent guidance so that they don’t need to memorise playbooks, takes notes for agents so that they can give customers their undivided attention, and allows new staff to come up to speed faster, acting as a dedicated supervisor.

 

All of these are laborious things that AI removes from agent workloads, allowing them to focus on empathy, listening, and complex tasks that require real skill, are higher value and less repetitive. Agents are now even being trained to build, train and optimise AI systems to aid machine learning, making AI an even more valuable companion.

 

Looking ahead, it is clear that collaborative intelligence is the future of contact centers. The seamless integration between AI and human will continue to build an experience that customers can trust.

 

Embracing human empathy and judgment and enhancing it with the speed and scale of AI will ensure customer interactions remain authentic, while reducing wait times and automating routine enquiries. In 2023, this will be a competitive differentiator for brands looking to cultivate brand loyalty and boost their bottom line. 

 

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Jonathan Rosenberg is CTO at Five9

 

Main image courtesy of iStockPhoto.com