IBM’s (News - Alert) famed Jeopardy champion, Watson, has been repurposed for the call center. 

To put it simply, Watson has the ability to not only understand the definitions of spoken words, but is able discern colloquialism, puns, rhymes, double meanings, sentence structure, and can infer hints from context. Moreover, it is able to rapidly process tremendous amounts of information to make nuanced logical connections between ideas and sentences and thereby respond appropriately to nearly any inquiry. You can see how this can be extremely useful in the contact center.

According to IBM, 50 percent of the 270 billion annual customer service go unresolved, 61 percent of which could have been resolved with better access to information. For businesses, this means an increase in cost per escalated call by three times. The efficiency of The IBM Watson Engagement Advisor not only addresses this issue, but also frees up customer service agents to address more complex service requests and helps managers keep up with high call and e-service volumes.

“The IBM Watson Engagement Advisor will help companies make their interactions count by knowing, delivering and learning what each customer wants – in the context of their preferences and actions – sometimes before even the customer knows it themselves,” IBM said in a statement.

IBM Watson will now allow customer service agents to provide quick and accurate answers to inquiring customers. Furthermore, Watson will also be available to customers via a mobile application. The “Ask Watson” feature will address customers' questions, offer feedback to guide their purchase decisions, and troubleshoot their problems all from a mobile device, website chat window, or other communications channel.

Customer service is more than simple question and answer session, however. Today’s consumers desire a deeper, more personalized, social experience when dealing with companies. IBM Watson answers this call by constantly analyzing customers’ preferences and actions, allowing it to learn, know, and deliver what each customer wants, “sometimes before even the customer knows it themselves.” Watson continuously learns and adapts from its interactions, which enables it to proactively engaging a business’ customers and provide increasingly accurate and personalized customer service solutions.

 “We envision Watson to serve as cognitive assistant, adept and quick at making sense of Big Data, that can empower our regional bank advisors to better serve our two million wealth management clients across the region," said Joyce Phillips, CEO Global Wealth and group managing director, marketing, innovation and digital, ANZ Banking Group. "We are pleased to explore with IBM how Watson can enable smarter, faster financial recommendations – yielding a customer experience that is simple, personalized and steeped in data-informed insights."

The IBM Watson Engagement Advisor is part of IBM’s Smarter Commerce Initiative. The full release can be found on IBM’s website.