The user experience that companies pursue is being shaped in many ways by social media platforms and smartphone applications. Companies that hold on to legacy solutions can’t possibly meet the fast-changing technology demands of the consumer accustomed to frequent updates and improvements on social platforms and apps. To match the level of user experience on these platforms, you need to migrate to unified communications as a service (UCaaS) and contact center as a service (CCaaS).
These cloud-based communications technologies each offer unique benefits to companies and end users. UCaaS converges all communications formats into a single application, combined with rich features like video conferencing and workspace sharing. CCaaS integrates customer service features with other applications so that agents are able to serve customers seamlessly, without having to toggle between applications to access information.
Both UCaaS and CCaaS are accessed in the cloud, allowing companies to gain some key benefits:
- A subscription-based pay model allows what was previously a major capital investment in new communications technology to become a monthly operating expense.
- Companies pay only for the number of users they need, easily scaling up and down as needed for seasonality or promotions.
- IT gets a break; hardware, maintenance, and updates are all handled by the cloud provider.
These are just a handful of the many benefits that are associated with shifting to a cloud communications solution, but the real potential is in emerging technology around artificial intelligence (AI). The agility with which UCaaS and CCaaS can implement new tools and features allows it to adopt AI technology as it becomes available, allowing companies to take full advantage of these advances.
Here are a few ways that AI is able to assist your agents and provide an elevated customer experience:
Improved Experiences: AI shortens wait times and allows customers to access self-service features when their call is for a routine request. From delivery estimates to invoicing and other requests, an automated interactive voice response (IVR) feature effectively routes calls, answers questions, and ensures the customer is satisfied with the result. When a customer request can’t be met with the automated tool, the system forwards the call to the appropriate agent.
Training Opportunities: Your UCaaS and CCaaS solutions can use AI to track natural language patterns and repeated words to monitor agent services. This allows management to easily prioritize their training topics and invest their time in the agents that need the most assistance to succeed.
Employee Retention: In recent years, the trend has begun to shift to a broader focus from customer experiences to user experiences. To attract and retain the best talent, you need technology that makes their tasks enjoyable. By routing routine calls to an IVR feature, your agents are able to focus on the more complex and interesting customer requests that come into your contact center.
Advancement in AI is just one of the many ways UCaaS and CCaaS have been enhanced in recent months – and these solutions have potential to improve even more in the future. Contact us at Hudson Technology Partners to get started exploring these solutions for your company.