How AI Is Powering the Next Generation of Support Agents

Over the years, the role of the customer support agent has evolved from simply handling customer inquiries to building customer relationships and growing the business. According to the Salesforce State of Service Report, 71 percent of agents see their role as more strategic than two years ago. This means not only are agents spending more time solving complex issues, but they're also expected to upsell, cross-sell, and provide voice of the customer input into product development. The problem is, they're being asked to take on these changing responsibilities using the same old processes and tools. "As agents become more strategic, they have the potential to add more business value, especially in the area of customer experience," said Alok Ramsisaria, CEO of Grazitti Interactive, SearchUnify's parent company based in Sunnyvale, CA. "Having successfully completed hundreds of service implementations for enterprises all over the world, I can confidently say that the key to empowering agents is to arm them with contextual knowledge about the problem they're solving. And do it in a way that's scalable and delivers consistent results. Unfortunately, support teams are being hampered by manual processes and technology silos that keep them from servicing customers in the most efficient, effective way."