As the novel coronavirus swept through the globe, we witnessed dramatic changes in how we work. Businesses spent the first half of the year adapting to these changes. However, the second half looks much different. Conversations around value preservation and cost-cutting have given way to dialogues around growth and optimization.
In order to keep customer experience consistent and to deliver more with less, organizations are increasing their investments in intelligent solutions like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning-based software.
Businesses that adopted AI in the initial phase of the crisis have already begun benefiting from it in terms of reduced costs and higher ROI. Some ramped up exploratory phases with AI after the coronavirus outbreak. Let’s look at the numbers on how the adoption of AI solutions has helped enterprises:
It's evident that AI is big business and is expected to skyrocket in the coming years.
5 business functions AI-solutions can transform for remote workers
A recent survey of CFOs and Finance leaders by Gartner revealed that 74% of companies plan to shift to more remote work post-COVID-19. While most enterprises have already started working remotely, and everything is virtual, customers still expect a seamless support experience. In a crisis, customers' emotional state adds to remote workers' challenges. What’s more, businesses are focusing on digital human-centered technology to handle the emotional state of both agents and customers
Also read: Bringing Customers And Businesses Closer With Technology To Create Awesome CX
AI and digital workspaces will likely empower remote workers in different business operations in the coronavirus era and beyond.
Here are five business functions that AI-based solutions can help businesses, along with each function's benefits:
1. Real-time support
Customer interaction and call volumes have increased drastically. Instant support via ticketing systems reduces the agents' effort and results in quick response times for customers. For example, an agent raising a ticket for a phone call or asking customers to fill out request forms describing the issue can easily pass the information to his/her colleagues on the open ticket for all future communication.
Also, with a flood of incoming tickets, the agent can get confused about which ticket to prioritize first. Here’s where automated ticket allocation works well, i.e., enables agents to solve the most frequently occurring cases first. Now, how do AI-based ticketing systems help? Typically, solutions powered by AI come with the following characteristics:
First, they ensure that customers know where they stand in the line; they usually set service level agreements (SLAs) or the maximum expected response time, usually 24-72 hours.
Second, AI-based systems are trained to ensure every customer gets a personalized response, even if it's a simple automated acknowledgment message, similar to "We're working on your issue. It may take some time to resolve."
Instant or real-time support is often the best way to handle spiking customer case volumes during the pandemic, as it removes the low-hanging fruit. It also gives agents enough time to understand which issues are critical or take the most time. Reactive support also helps agents maintain a good average handling time (AHT) for customer cases.
2. Back-office tasks
AI-powered solutions help businesses free people to do more creative, less operational work. Support teams working remotely may have to take on out-of-office administrative work, such as maintaining company records or performing basic administrative tasks.
AI-based solutions help agents handle the company’s back-office tasks so they can focus on more high-value tasks. For instance, advanced AI can analyze large volumes of data from countless sources, making data classification and categorization easy, thereby helping in back-office optimization.
An AI-supported system handles dull/repetitive tasks on agents’ behalf, freeing up support teams’ capacity for critical tasks. An eBook by OwlDesk elaborates on how AI solutions and support teams can work together to relieve support agents from back-office operations and leave them only to quality-control service processes.
Advanced AI helps support teams to do minimal administrative work. They achieve better productivity, more creative power, and better customer experience.
3. Sales prioritization
Sales and business development functions are having a tough time. Traditional sales models are becoming obsolete as customers choose different paths to purchase (digital touchpoints can be mentioned). So, in the on-demand, multi-platform era, delivering faster and quicker customer service is becoming increasingly complicated with conventional systems. AI-powered sales performance solutions can help businesses at every sales cycle stage. For instance, AI applications can automate the long-running tasks of initiating contact with a sales lead and then qualify, follow up, and sustain the potential lead.
In addition, AI-based solutions make mapping and managing the customer journey very easy. They have easy-to-use analytics tools to measure and improve the entire customer experience.
In a recent analysis, MIT Technology Review Insights found that:
Almost 90% of companies worldwide are using AI insights to improve customer journeys.
AI can analyze data quickly to uncover, classify, and predict valuable information that helps businesses prioritize sales and open growth opportunities.
4. Team collaboration
Remote work makes communication and collaboration more challenging. Employees also feel they must be available round the clock or work extra hours. Bloomberg suggests that remote workers were logged on for two to three more hours per day during the quarantine than before the pandemic. Such instances blur the line between employees' personal and professional lives. They also don't know what's happening in your team.
An AI-driven digital distributed collaboration can help. AI capabilities provide contextual insight that's usually impossible to get during an in-person meeting. Automating service processes and setting up different distributed collaboration solutions are some of the benefits of AI-based collaboration tools.
Think of it as a team meeting you missed. For instance, during the session, the AI tools could automatically capture and present additional relevant information or resources, such as web links, videos, and documents, that would be useful for the meeting based on the topic and keywords used. All of this helps to improve the service flow, save time, increase team productivity, and reduce digital impatience. So, you become more inclusive and less intrusive.
Also Read: How to Turn Your Team Super-Productive with ThinkOwl
5. Document and identity verification
AI and virtual assistants have been at the top of enterprises' lists of technologies to add or replace in the past few years. Consider a bank, for instance, that needs to verify its customers' onboarding and ID documents. This is usually done by bank employees, who check pay slips, postal addresses, etc., which makes it a costly and inefficient business operation. Instead, AI solutions can be used to identify the type of documents captured quickly, validate signatures, perform face-matching, and so on.
Shifting to AI-based intelligent solutions only digitizes the process, making it a paperless operation and saving time and cost.
Many AI-powered smart tools in the market help businesses of different industry verticals like banking, finance, and insurance in document verification and identification. One such tool is Fileee Conversations, an intelligent application that scans, analyzes, and automatically organizes your documents.
Also Read: Bye Paper, Hello Future: Customer Service with Fileee Conversations
ThinkOwl, an AI-based customer service software, powers Fileee Conversations. This solution's powerful integration helps businesses deliver digital and AI-powered customer service. AI-based solutions can support different business functions, improve employee productivity, reduce user frustration, and create better business outcomes.
With customer expectations rising, it's much easier for businesses to adapt evolved workflows tailored to customer expectations by deploying conversational AI.
Say goodbye to overwhelming workloads and hello to smoother operations with AI-powered service desk software. Streamline tasks, track issues efficiently, and boost productivity for a happier, more successful support center. Try OwlDesk now for 30 days free of charge.