BackGenerative AI at the centre of contact centres' transformation; will there be layoffs?
As the AI revolution sweeps the world, it continues to haunt workers across sectors including the ones at contact centres sparking widespread fear of layoffs and of bleak future. However, industry leaders say otherwise.
PremiumThere’s no end to tech disruption and thanks to Artificial Intelligence, the phenomenon has certainly taken the world by storm since the launch of Chat-GPT by Microsoft-backed-Open AI. While everything around AI sounds peppy, world leaders including US president Joe Biden have raised concerns and warned of potential risks.
The technology is certainly set to reinvent industries, and contact centres are no exception. In fact, AI is at the centrestage of the very business where it could offer the transformational pivot the industry needs for its scalability.
Contact centres are ‘the last line of defence’ that supports customer interactions across a wide variety of channels including phone calls, emails, web/app chats and other social media interactions for a company and differs from telephone-only call centres through its omnichannel offerings. Mint had spoken to business leaders in the contact centre services space on how generative AI is shaping up the industry’s future.
The role of AI in the future of contact centres
A Gartner survey released in August last year predicted conversational AI to bring down contact centre agent labour costs by $80 bn in 2026. While this is great news for those looking to cut down costs and make contact centres financially viable, people in the business say AI isn’t about cost-cutting but bringing in efficiencies and upping the customer experience.
“One of the major benefits of incorporating AI with contact centres is the improved efficiency through automation of repetitive tasks. This, in turn, helps increase productivity and lets organisations focus on enhancing the customer experience. Automations can also speed up response times and increase first-contact resolution, which means that human resources can spend their time focusing on more complex issues," Ramprakash Ramamoorthy, director of AI research, ManageEngine, Zoho Corp said.
While this could be one way of incorporating AI, the other way could be to use machine learning AI logic to identify caller intent in real-time and routing calls to agents with the right skill and level of expertise to handle them. AI in these cases are seen as an effective assist tool for both customers and agents.
Interestingly, Chaitanya Chokkareddy, Chief Product Officer, Ozonetel, says AI could be even more efficient as an analytical tool to boost satisfaction rates, sales, customer loyalty and conversions.
“AI can analyse agent performance and customer conversations, enabling businesses to discover agent training requirements, root cause of customer dissatisfaction, and other customer experience insights that can help optimise operations as well as improve overall business performance," Chokkareddy adds.
Contact centres bat for ‘hybrid’ ecosystem, reject ‘layoffs’
As the AI revolution sweeps the world, it continues to haunt workers across sectors including the ones in contact centres sparking widespread fear of layoffs and of bleak future. However, industry leaders say otherwise.
“The integration of AI-based services in the customer engagement function will create a shift in the roles and responsibilities of contact centre agents, rather than decreasing their headcount," Exotel’s Puru Govind said.
“As companies integrate conversational AI tools in their processes, they would have to make increments in human capital to manage and maintain these systems, creating new job opportunities in the customer engagement space," he also added.
Ozonetel’s Chokkareddy pointed out that the contact centres could adopt a hybrid strategy where AI based bots could handle 30% of interactions while the rest 70% could still need human agents.
“Rather than being a cog within a robotic, factory-like setup, agents who leverage AI will become highly skilled, specialised contributors. For businesses, this will translate into higher CSAT, improved upselling, deeper customer engagement, increased loyalty, and eventually higher customer lifetime value," he stated.
Also read: AI will amplify capabilities but low-skilled workers will lose jobs: Gupshup CEO
Challenges around AI adoption
While conversations around AI adoption within contact centres could be all music to the ears, the scenario pans out differently in reality. There are challenges at different levels according to the business leaders.
“A huge challenge that remains on the infrastructure side, particularly in India, is integrating AI-based tools into legacy systems, especially on-premise setups. These systems were not designed with AI in mind and require more resources to support newer tools," Puru Govind said. Therefore, businesses need to upgrade their systems to more flexible cloud-based models going forward.
There are also challenges around the quality of data produced to train these AI models and with the workforce.
“AI depends on high-quality data to make accurate decisions. Many businesses struggle with poor data quality. To make data-driven decisions, businesses must ensure that their data is clean, accurate, and relevant," Chaitanya Chokkareddy said.
Both leaders also call for contact centres to invest more in training their staff and working with their vendors to access the necessary expertise to build a workforce that could lead the future.
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