Did you miss our inaugural Tomorrow’s Workforce webinar? We’ve got you covered with some key takeaways from our experts Colin Whelan, Senior Director of Customer Success, and Carlos Munoz, Senior Director of Business Development.
Michelle Gaffney, CEO of Call Design, helped us kick off our new webinar series with “Artificial Intelligence and the Business of Buzzwords in the Contact Center Industry". Our team discussed an array of topics related to Artificial Intelligence (AI) and industry buzzwords, including the role these terms play in the workforce world, as well as the contact center space.
This webinar uncovered some new ideas and expanded upon ongoing conversations. Let’s take a look at a few of the main points discussed.
Buzzwords aren’t new.
Buzzwords have been around for as long as technological innovation has occurred. The buzzwords in workforce management and contact centers have just changed over time. We’ve seen call recording, automatic call distribution (ACD), and interactive voice response (IVR) all get their time to shine in the contact center space. At the end of the day, each of these buzzwords were about one thing: how organizations take better care of their clients. The rise of AI is no different.
So when we hear AI, machine learning, automation, and related buzzwords, consider the underlying relevancy. These innovations were implemented to better serve customers by improving interactions and service quality.
“The contact center industry is there to help people and we have always embraced technology, solutions, and processes to do that the best we can. That’ll never change.” -Colin Whelan
Innovations in technology have always aimed to enhance efficiency and employee engagement.
Employee engagement has taken a front seat in the workforce world, especially in contact centers that suffer from high turnover rates. Although buzzwords are often artificially developed and inflated for marketing purposes (we have to be real here), they are often created to solve efficiency and engagement concerns.
The customer, colleague, and company (the 3 Cs) should be the focus of concerns that buzzwords and accompanying technologies aim to ease. It’s important to focus on the right details when considering how buzzwords like AI and the solutions it offers can fit into business needs. Avoid losing focus of the 3 Cs when implementing automation and machine learning solutions.
The understanding of buzzwords can be industry dependent.
When thinking of buzzwords as marketing terms, we must understand that they’ll have unique applications in different industries. They may not always apply to certain industries in the way initially intended. The way contact centers have responded to past buzzwords like “big data” and “going to cloud” will have distinct applications from other spaces. The same goes for utilizing AI systems in contact centers.
“We weren’t talking about ‘big data’ in contact centers. It was ‘data-driven’ and ‘data rich.’ But big data means something very different. It’s a different application than what were talking about. Conflating terms that way can apply to AI and machine learning too.” - Carlos Munoz
AI won’t make agents redundant.
Technology isn’t taking over. Similar fears were present with past technologies like the rise of IVRs and chatbots. Those fears didn't come to a head. Though, some businesses may attempt replacing parts of their workforce with automated systems, this shouldn’t be the norm and likely won’t encourage business success.
Automation and deep learning should help organizations save time on mundane tasks and reallocate resources to employees. This includes investing time in more training, additional breaks for better mental health, and working on special projects that may not typically get enough agent attention. AI can help agents become better prepared to help customers, not replace them.
“What we’re doing, just like we have in the past with other pieces of technology, is that we’re removing the mundane. Organizations don’t want to have to pay a brilliant, talented, empathetic human being with critical thinking skills to do tedious things like update a password.” - Carlos Munoz
Automated processes still requires a human touch.
We’ve established that AI won’t replace agents. It’s also important to consider the role AI plays in decision making processes from workforce planners and leadership. AI offers time savings by automating processes that could typically take hours of manual work. Automated systems can provide consistent, accurate, approaches and models for workforce planners to choose from. However, these systems don’t make the choice of business approach. The choice and action stays with workforce planners as decision makers. Workforce management can harness AI systems to benefit employees, leadership, and ultimately, customers.
“I’d rather something else handle admin processing work to provide the best models to fit my business, saving me time and showing that these are the best approaches for us. I don’t have to choose to take these approaches but I saved three, four, five hours of work.” - Colin Whelan
AI may have a place in back office operations.
When we talk about AI in contact centers, its typically to support efforts in front office operations. Back office operations are often forgotten in these conversations. AI is more directly beneficial to front office efforts but can offer some support for back office solutions. AI systems can glean insights of front office and back office relations, offering access to trends that may not be manually accessible. These insights between units can improve processes in the back office to best support front office interactions, and vice versa.
“AI can offer a gathering of information to provide visibility between front office and back office operations. It can access information we couldn't access before and gives us true understanding of a holistic work experience.” - Michelle Gaffney
Don’t miss out on our next installment in the Tomorrow’s Workforce webinar series. Next time, we’ll be sitting down with a team of Aspect experts to discuss the challenges that arise when evaluating contact center software for your business.
Join us on December 11th at 12:00PM EST for “Tomorrow’s Workforce: Navigating Challenges and Avoiding Pitfalls When Evaluating Contact Center Software.” Be sure to register in advance and we’ll see you then.
