AI Escalations – Be The Elephant!

By: Rob McDougall, CEO, Upstream Works Software 

They say an elephant never forgets. Unfortunately, many contact centers have the unfortunate habit of doing just that. With the addition of new AI channels, the problem is only going to get worse.

Having to repeat information to a contact center agent constantly comes in near the top in the order of things that negatively impact customer satisfaction. Surprisingly, this remains a problem in many traditional call centers when calls are transferred between agents or when an IVR prompts for information that is not shared with the agent. To minimize customer dissatisfaction, and to improve the agent’s experience, every business should be constantly looking for ways to ensure that information is not lost and to minimize the need for customers to repeat themselves across every interaction with a business.

With conversational AI, the end user is asked to input a lot of information into the AI to resolve an issue using self-service. However, the situation can be compounded when a customer has an interaction with a chatbot and then needs to escalate to an agent for further assistance. In these cases, it is crucial that the transcript of the entire chatbot interaction is delivered to the agent so that the customer doesn’t need to repeat themselves.

It is also important to ensure that any previous interactions, whether successful or unsuccessful, are shared with the agent when the customer contacts the business again, regardless of the channel they are using. Any information that the customer knows about their interaction history, the agent should know. Having the full context of the customer’s previous interaction enables the agent to assist the customer. Even with a successful and self-contained self-service interaction with a chatbot, the context and transcript of that interaction need to be available to an agent on any subsequent interactions. I’ll repeat: Any information that the customer knows about their interaction history, the agent should know.

It is also important to consider the ease of access for agents to conversational AI transcripts. If agents are required to use multiple interfaces or applications to access this context information, it will lead to complexity, frustration, and a lack of adoption. Instead, it is important to provide the necessary information to agents in an easily digestible format that they can access quickly, easily, and consistently. Ensuring that agents have the tools they need to provide excellent customer service creates a true omnichannel experience for customers and improves overall customer and agent satisfaction.

Learn how Upstream Works AI application integration capabilities improve agent experiences (AX) here.