Customer experience is often discussed as a front-end challenge, but in reality it is shaped by what happens behind the scenes, particularly the employee experience. Much of this is dependent on the tools and resources that customer service agents have at their disposal.
A recent Salesforce State of Service study reported findings from surveying 6,500 customer service representatives. At organizations that implemented advanced automation and AI tools, 65% of respondents said that they now have more time to build customer relationships – 15 points higher than organizations without such tools in place. The report also highlighted how 53% of agents at organizations using AI to enhance tools were able to improve processes and 48% had more time to create knowledge resources (vs. 31% and 28%, respectively).
One example where advanced automation and AI can create positive outcomes for both customers and employees is through the IVR experience.
Improving IVR experiences with autonomous bots
Image source: Luware.com
In a traditional IVR setting, callers are often transferred within the first 30-60 seconds. There are many scenarios where a customer may land in the wrong place, at which point the first agent they speak with figures this out and redirects them. An intent-based IVR – essentially a fully autonomous bot – can streamline the experience for the customer and on the back-end.
Say this type of IVR system is implemented at an insurance company. When it fields a call prior to routing to a human agent, the bot asks, “What are you calling about?” The caller answers, “Someone just hit my car!” From that, the system can skip several levels of the IVR and route the caller directly through to the automotive claims team.
The 30 to 60 seconds that it takes an agent and customer to work through introductions, establish the purpose of the call, identify that the customer has reached the wrong department and ensure a warm transfer can add up significantly when there are thousands of calls per day. We have a client with this type of setup, and since implementing this tool, they have experienced a 22% reduction in call transfers. Studies have found that first call resolution (FCR) rates correlate closely with customer satisfaction rates. Among these are SQM Group’s research, which has shown that for each 1% improvement in FCR, the operation costs for a contact center reduce by 1%.
When properly executed, streamlining the IVR process is not only a major time savings, but also lessens risk from a customer experience perspective.
Connecting effortlessly through configurable workspaces
Another key element that can impact experiences is system switching. To set the front-end experience up for success, it is vital to optimize agent workspaces on the back-end to enable them to manage all customer engagements holistically.
Increasingly, customer service agents are managing complex omnichannel engagements. When agents are operating within fragmented desktop environments, this can limit visibility and make holistic customer management difficult. A Harvard Business Review study found that digital workers are constantly switching apps, toggling nearly 1,200 times per day between apps and websites. Reorienting themselves after this back and forth switching takes nearly four hours per week (about 9% of total work time).
An agent’s role is already demanding. A configurable workspace with extensive visibility of engagement channels and integration with – or even embedding into – leading enterprise software applications can make a huge difference. Configurable workspaces should also be complemented with strong integration with enterprise CRM and easily incorporate all workflows.
It is worth considering a low-code/no-code platform that provides a robust collection of tools to create and optimize integrated environments, leveraging automation, apps, and analytics. With a low-code/no-code setup, it’s simple to integrate knowledge bases with custom business applications, even for users with no coding expertise. Within such an ecosystem, users are also able to streamline workflows, from approvals, notifications, and data transfers between systems to ticket routing.
Anything that helps prevent agents from having to toggle and manually re-enter data is a win. Whether it’s customer information, interaction history, cases, opportunities and other business data – all should be available directly within the agent’s workspace.
Forward-looking operations create the best experiences for all
Continuously assessing agent assistance tools, knowledge systems and workflows is increasingly important for customer engagements as complexity grows. Greater visibility across engagement channels improves context, collaboration and confidence.
In AI-ready operations, turning every conversation into structured data that feeds back into the customer support system makes the next interaction smarter. As more organizations infuse automation and AI to advance their models for customer service delivery, agents are increasingly benefiting from every customer engagement.
Agents who can consistently rely on both AI-led systems and configurable workspaces are poised for the most successful customer interactions and outcomes.