Call Center Scheduling Featured Article
Bots Will Transform the Call Center and Create New Opportunities
Automation is the name of the game in technology, and advances in artificial intelligence (AI) are eliminating routine manual tasks in the name of efficiency, cost savings and error reduction. The trend is giving way to a “bot economy” that is set to permeate the customer service realm and revolutionize the call center and its functionality, including call center scheduling.
The cloud and services tech economy, combined with demanding tech-savvy millennials and other factors, is already transforming the world of customer service. Today’s customers want to interact in their own time, through whichever means or device they feel most comfortable with, and they don’t want to have to wait on hold or navigate through endless menus of options to get their needs met. Unfortunately, the legacy call center structure of IVRs and various tiers of human call center representatives don’t meet the needs of these increasingly demanding consumers.
The bot economy holds a lot of promise in the customer service space, and AI interfaces are fully capable of absorbing large knowledge databases so they may handle queries and requests more efficiently. And AI can personalize the discussion with the demanding human on the other side of a call, breaking down language and technology barriers to deliver a specialized and efficient customer interaction.
What does this mean for call center agents and call center scheduling? AI will only be as strong as the humans who manage and control it, and there will always need to be a human element to the customer interaction. Bots will need to be carefully managed and monitored to ensure they are serving the best interests of both businesses and customers, and for that, humans will play an important role. This can also be measured with some basic metrics, which will need to be re-prioritized in the new bot economy. For instance, the objective in a traditional call center is to keep Average Talk Time (ATT) low. That won’t be the case with bots, which will work toward providing personalized service and meeting customer demands rather than ending the chat or call as quickly as possible.
Ultimately, this creates a job market for AI and bot trainers that will be substantial. These trainers will be responsible for mentoring and feeding bots with the right data for a variety of scenarios, ensuring they respond appropriately to any kind of customer interaction. It’s a massive undertaking that will grow bigger as AI and bot technologies advance. Call center scheduling will evolve to become bot switchboard management, with call center workers monitoring several bot chats simultaneously to ensure everything is running smoothly and customers are satisfied.
Edited by Alicia Young