Call centers have leveraged advanced technology for decades—from first-generation call-routing systems that dispatched customers to the first available agents to interactive voice response (IVR) systems that millions of customers still talk to today.
But little of it made customers happy. Even as nascent applications in artificial intelligence (AI) gained traction in the 2000s, call centers were more focused on using tech to slash costs than they were on improving customer experience.
Learn how AI and ML can help your phone traffic and monitor successful connections
AI-enabled conversational assistants aren’t just getting customers basic info they need; behind the scenes, they’re also feeding human agents intelligent data and analysis to deliver better, faster outcomes, without customers ever being aware.
Gartner states about 70% of all use cases in AI are related to customer service and call centers. The hype of AI-Powered Human agents is a reality. There is a place for both humans and and AI to work hand in hand and blend into the entire customer service journey? The challenge is getting the balance and strategy right.
AI employs machine learning to identify content, actions, behaviors and intent. Executed well it can anticipate customer needs, using intelligent processes and self-learning to improve the customer experience. Don’t just think of a ML as a Robot: it’s a machine that can perform various automated tasks on behalf of contact center agents.
It’s actually very hard to tell if a cold call is going to be successful. This is why cold calls have an extremely low success rate and require thousands of calls to bring any value. Because of the randomness involved they are not really pleasant for either parties involved. However, with Machine Learning and enough data it might be possible to understand the factors behind successful calls which can then be used to better qualify prospects and tailor the content of the calls.
With traditional cold calling, you choose a random list of accounts and start smiling and dialing.
Cold calling with AI says you choose a list of accounts that are likely to buy from you and that are also considering your product or service at that particular moment.
With traditional cold calling you call a lot of random 800 numbers.
Calling with AI means calling proven phone numbers that have been tested by others.
Traditional cold calling says you should call whenever you want
Calling with AI tells you the optimal time to call to maximize your ability to talk with someone
Traditional calling means calling blindly knowing nothing about your prospects.
AI-based phone calls provides insights presented to the caller so you don’t have to spend precious time researching.
Cold calling uses the same script
AI personalizes your pitch based on the different aspects of the individual.
Robotic process automation (RPA) has already done the grunt work for you in getting to know your customers really, really well. Love is in the air! Use this to your advantage and reward them with new conversations; personalised communications that remind them why they plumped for you in the first place. When they’re considering their options second time around, make sure automation has done its job in making you the default choice for a repeat purchase.
Learn how AI and ML can improve your cold call rates