How artificial intelligence can solve call center problems with chatbots

The AI call center

Call centers need to be efficient, well-oiled machines. After all, they often deal with a range of customer or internal queries that need to be handled as soon as possible. Any problem can trip up the system, which will lead to longer response times and angry users. With artificial intelligence (AI), companies are able to reduce call center problems that may occur, as well as highlight any future problems.

Having to monitor each and every employee and call can be a costly and time-consuming process. Using AI, call centers can increase their outputs as well as streamline any and all systems. It’s a technology that will greatly benefit your company.

Related: How chatbots are changing call centers 

Here are a few ways in which your company’s call center can be streamlined by using artificial intelligence.

Collecting every piece of data

While your company may already use customer relations management (CRM) software, these can be tedious for those with specific requirements. This includes having to pull data and analytics from the CRM, or whichever system your company uses, which may output the results into a cumbersome PDF or Excel spreadsheet. Often, a range of useless data will be collected, which has to be omitted from the results.

By implementing AI, only the relevant data will be collected and correlated from every interaction with the customer, and internal systems. This allows you to reference any piece of the call or chat and pull up a range of valuable information.

Weeding out problems

An AI system is not only able to log calls from customers but the interactions with staff members as well. This allows the system to check call time, how long it takes staff members to find a solution to the caller’s problem, as well as how many calls they take a day.

Though this may seem similar to traditional call center software, an AI-based program can analyze all of the raw information and not just log it. With this analysis, it is much easier to find faults in the system.

Virtual agents to assist customers

Instead of having to call into the call center, customers are able to speak to AI chatbots on your website for minor issues. These may include how to troubleshoot a problem or an update on their account status. AI chatbots are also able to field calls away from busy agents and collect data from the customer beforehand.

If the question cannot be answered by the chatbot, it will then connect the customer to the relevant agent and forward all the interactions it has had. The AI chatbot is also able to learn from these interactions, which will enable it to assist customers from going forward.

Lower call center training costs

By using an AI system to handle a lot of the backend work, as well as servicing call center agents with relevant information, your staff won’t require as much training. All they will need to worry about is handling customers and pulling up the correct answers from the system. This means that if a member of staff leaves, they can easily be replaced, which lowers the amount of company downtime you may face.

For more information on AI, chatbots, as well as VR, take a look at our article on business technology trends in 2017. And, if you're interested in streamlining your call center, have a look at Clickatell’s Touch solution, which has all of these features and more.