AI & Cloud- The Beginning Of A New Era For Businesses

As customer support becomes one of the vital aspects of growing a business, this is one area that you cannot afford to overlook. And perhaps, this is the reason that adoption of cloud-based communication solutions is becoming widespread today. While moving to cloud telephony is a great idea, you can take the level of customer communication, a notch higher by leveraging AI as well. The growing hype around Artificial Intelligence in the cloud is undoubtedly a disruptive event for organizations now.

But before you move ahead with this amazing blend of these two immensely-innovative technologies, you need to understand how they can work individually and in combination to deliver a ground-breaking solution for your business.

Start with the basics- Understanding Artificial Intelligence and Cloud first!

Artificial Intelligence, as the name implies, refers to simulated intelligence in machines rather than humans. Simply speaking, AI-powered machines and systems have the intellectual process which is peculiar to humans. Apart from only being intelligent, these machines are capable of reasoning, learning from the past, discovering meaning, or generalizing, just as humans can do. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that these machines can “think” like humans and even mimic their actions and reactions to certain circumstances.

On the other hand, cloud refers to an ecosystem that comprises diverse components including applications, databases, software capabilities, etc. that leverage the power of cloud resources to enable specific business functionality. Cloud telephony, for example, refers to the set-up that hosts the entire mobile, telephone and voice-based communication devices onto the cloud. The system is highly desirable for businesses because the requirement of any additional hardware setup or installation to get it up and running is minimal. Additionally, it is scalable and cost-effective but ensures exceptionally high levels of customer experiences.

AI & Cloud telephony- A match made in heaven

Businesses are quite accustomed to the idea of harnessing AI for customer-facing communication. In fact, almost everyone does it; you will probably have a chatbot to converse with customers on your web and/or mobile interface or you may also be using automatic email replies as a part of your customer support process. Apart from facilitating better text communications, AI can empower your business with enhanced call management as well. Blending cloud telephony with AI seems like a great strategy for optimising the quality of customer interactions and services over telephone. It makes a lot of sense for organisations that are short of resources or simply want to make a conscious decision to automate their processes in the near future.

And it is not just about replacing the human customer support staff; the technology also helps the team in enhancing the levels of customer experiences they deliver. From providing information that enables them to handle queries better to giving recommendations about the customer concerns and reducing call time, there is more than one way in which this blend of technologies can increase the efficiency of the team and the business as a whole. Let us explain in detail how AI and cloud telephony together mark a new era for businesses.

Automation of simple requests

As AI is already automating the routine queries for text-based channels (such as it does with smart chatbots), it can do the same for your cloud call center as well. Smart telephonic interactions can easily address the routine, straightforward problems such as checking balances, returning orders and resetting passwords with minimal effort. Moreover, phone calls are one channel that a majority of your customers prefer, which makes AI integration a smart move.

Obviously, you can expect to take the overall satisfaction levels with the company to the next level by facilitating such interactions for the customers. Additionally, your agents will no longer have to handle lower-level, repetitive queries and can focus on the complex ones that need emotional intelligence and critical thinking.

Quicker resolution of customer issues

Another unmatched benefit of combining AI and cloud is visible in the form of quicker resolution of customer queries, which translates into enhanced satisfaction and better reputation for the business. AI tools can transcribe and process the content of phone conversations in real time. Further, they can scan a massive volume of information to find the relevant resources or recommend the best paths to resolution.

This means agents have to work less to find the requisite information they need and can do it quickly as well. Moreover, they are also able to maintain consistency in responses as they get the same AI-powered guidance, regardless of their skill and experience. The system uses a database to train the AI application on the basis of prior successful conversations, which makes it smarter and better at interpreting context and suggesting apt resolution paths over time.

Better management of data

When it comes to call center setup, you can expect the data to increase massively over a period of time. Obviously, you will face the challenge of managing the call data that comes in such huge volume, variety and velocity. At the cloud level, Artificial Intelligence tools are also capable of improving data management.

This makes them a wise investment for any business, considering the vast repositories of data they generate and collect and manage as well. From identifying data, to ingesting it, cataloging it, and analysing it over time, there is a lot to do. By integrating AI tools with cloud telephony, it becomes possible to handle the specific aspects of the data process at granular levels.

Breakdown of contact center silos

Typically, phone calls are completely disjointed from other service center channels. There is always a possibility that the agents managing text-based interactions are not able to share the call context effectively with the phone agents taking over. This happens because of the technology and process silos in the contact center. And it is always the customers who have to bear the brunt of the situation, as they need to repeat themselves time and again. But the damage will happen to your business in the form of customer dissatisfaction.

Implementing AI is the best approach to deal with the concern as it automatically transcribes voice calls into text and brings everyone on the same page. Effectively, every service agent ends up with the same status of insight into the situation and can deliver a consistent level of support. Overall, customers get the seamless and personalized experiences they crave.

Summing Up

Artificial Intelligence and cloud make a potent combination of technologies that have the potential to transform business at every level. And the potential is promising for call center support, right from enabling deeper learning about the callers and their expectations to facilitating near-complete automation of customer interactions. This ensures better experiences for your customers and greater efficiency for the agents.

Better experiences translate into greater trust and higher profits for your business. At the same time, greater efficiency means better performance and cost and time saving for the support team. So it makes complete sense to invest in an AI-enabled cloud telephony system for your organisation so that it can reach a notch higher. The best way to do it is by collaborating with a service provider that offers innovative cloud communication solutions to match your needs.

Author  bio:
Vanita Arora is a marketing enthusiast. She is currently working with Servetel, a leading cloud telephony service provider. Reading novels, travelling, researching new online marketing trends are some of her interest areas that keep her rejuvenated.