Artificial intelligence (AI) will soon eliminate customer service waiting time

The new technology provides savings for service providers and a better customer experience for consumers

Customer service is one of the areas where artificial intelligence (AI) may result in the biggest changes in the near future, as a result of favorable experiences related to the already available technologies. According to United Call Centers (UCC)'s forecast based on market data, within a few years, most transactions in Hungary will be conducted through automated, AI-controlled processes, especially in regulated areas such as financial services or logistics.

The digital transition based on artificial intelligence in the customer service sector also brings many significant benefits to customers. Call waiting can be practically eliminated (according to international surveys, the industry average waiting time is currently 25.8 seconds), the service is available at any time, and the proportion of contacts resulting in an immediate solution also improves significantly.

Filtering out negative customer experiences is in the fundamental interest of all service providers: A recent UCC survey revealed that such negative experiences fundamentally affect the opinion of the relevant organization for 43 percent of the respondents, for another 34 percent significantly, and for 18 percent to a small extent. Only 5 percent indicated that such an experience had no effect on their judgment.

The key is a properly structured knowledge base

A significant improvement in efficiency can already be achieved if the operators can access the knowledge bases that form the basis of the response not in dry, hard-to-understand documents, but on an interface with a complex search engine and built with outstanding visual ergonomics - explained Zsolt Máté Juhász, managing director of United Call Centers. - That is why we now support many large corporate customers with software solutions based on this basic concept.”

If a properly structured database is available, applying artificial intelligence is just an additional step. The AI Co-Pilot function, which is already working today, learns the given content and generates immediate answers for employees in chat format, which they can communicate to customers without conversion, thus reducing the waiting time and enhancing the customer experience. The function works on a very similar principle to other generative AIs (such as ChatGPT) (both applications are powered by the same engine), with the essential difference that it relies exclusively on the specific, closed, professionally validated knowledge base when answering. that is, data and information are not transferred to foreign servers.

A live operator cannot be eliminated in the long run either

According to UCC's experience, with the application of AI, up to 20 percent of calls can already be handled automatically today, and within a few years, a significant part of repetitive tasks will be solved automatically in customer service systems controlled by artificial intelligence. However, in the long term, there will still be special, more complex tasks that must be entrusted to human resources. All matters in which empathy plays a prominent role fall into this category - this is typically the case in dealing with customer complaints.

 

United Call Centers

United Call Centers (UCC) is one of the market-leading providers of outsourced customer service solutions. The main profile of its activity is multilingual customer support by phone, email, and chat, the automation of business processes, and the development of services based on artificial intelligence.

The Hungarian-owned UCC, founded in 1999, operates in more than 50 languages and 40 countries and works with 700 employees worldwide. Its clients are companies that represent outstanding quality in their respective fields in the telecommunications, food-, energy-, health industry, e-commerce, and e-mobility. The basis of UCC success is the constant effort to provide its clients with an outstanding customer experience with the help of the most advanced technologies available.