Conversational AI is playing an increasing role in customer service contact centres. It can greet customers, handle routine requests in a conversational manner, and more accurately route interactions to the service agents who can best assist. But when a customer reaches out to a contact centre, they are often frustrated because they have unsuccessfully tried to solve their problem online, and they expect their request to be met with empathy and urgency. Irritation can take over if the user reaches an AI bot when they need a human conversation; or if they have to wait for a human when an AI could resolve the issue more efficiently. When seeking immediate answers and information, 36% of customers choose self-service chat or a virtual agent.

The strategic value of artificial intelligence (AI) is widely recognised by customer experience (CX) leaders worldwide. However, AI implementation in the contact centre appears to have slowed over the last year. Recent Talkdesk research explores why CX leaders find it challenging to realise the full potential of AI technology in the contact centre. CX leaders understand the value of AI and automation, viewing this technology as critical to accelerate success. The core benefits of AI technology deployment in the contact centre are not contested.

The findings also reveal European executives see investing in cloud and AI as becoming central to CX strategy. Providing personalised support as part of an excellent CX is more than ever the goal for all companies. With digital channels now critically important, technology is key to remaining forefront of delivering the best CX. The results come from the third edition of the research, which surveyed 1,035 business executives across five major European markets. The survey highlights the trends and evolution in the market, which will be published across three eBooks, analysing: How AI is changing European contact centres, the Natural Language Processing (NLP) challenges in the contact centre industry, and ways contact centres can improve CX using AI.

Contact centres for financial institutions have traditionally been a core touch point for customers to access various types of immediate support – from queries to complaints to fraud alerting. Today their role hasn't necessarily changed. However, the value organisations place on them certainly has. The focus is shifting from fitting customers around business processes to reshaping contact centres around customers' needs. For years, the role of contact centres was limited – often confined by traditional 9-5 working hours. It was predominantly aimed at driving down costs and improving efficiencies.

Chris Wyper, Director of Global Industry Strategy, Retail and E-commerce at Talkdesk, explores how retailers can leverage AI solutions to achieve more personalised CX and stand out in a competitive market. The rise of personalised or hyper-personalised service is one of the most significant changes we've seen across the retail sector over recent years. It might seem a little ironic that, at a time when personal interactions in-store and on the phone have decreased, the process of making a purchase has actually become less transactional and more personalised. Digitisation has paved the way for retailers to gather more data and analytics. Not only has this digitisation helped retailers better understand their customers, it's enabled them to respond in real-time to meet their needs..

The impacts of artificial intelligence (AI) in today's businesses can be far-reaching. Organisations can leverage AI tools and solutions to achieve benefits such as more streamlined communications through digitisation that helps to achieve greater process efficiencies. However, one of the most significant impacts of AI is its impact on the human side of the equation, especially when it comes to its uses in contact centres. AI can have significant impacts and benefits for the human contact centre workforce. While previously contact centre agents may have been concerned that AI would replace the human element, businesses can benefit by leveraging AI to support human agents rather than replace them. In addition, using AI can enhance both the agent and customer experience (CX) in contact centres.

Andrés Pérez Soderi has a joke he likes to tell when asked to describe how his company came together. "A Russian, a Chinese and a Venezuelan walked into a bar, and they end up making software so they can understand each other," Soderi says. Venezuelan-born Soderi is one of the three founders of US-based artificial intelligence startup, Sanas. Together with Chinese-born co-founders, Shawn Zhang, and Russian-born, Maxim Serebryakov, and their team, he has been working to unpick the nuances of accents to make communication easier for people from different backgrounds. That could have huge implications for any marketer who wants to improve customer experience through voice channels by helping both customers and staff be better understood.

The Austrian management consultant, Peter Drucker said: "knowledge has become the resource rather than a resource…". Certainly, knowledge management is at the heart of the contact centre's role, bridging the gap between customers' enquiries and the facts, which will resolve their problems. But it is not just an important challenge, it's a very difficult one. Today, with extensive product lines, specialised customers, fast-changing market requirements, and complex partner relationships, there are huge volumes of data to deal with. Added to this, businesses need to think about how fast information becomes outdated, as products update continually and the knowledge generation process moves further away from those selling to and supporting the customer.

The acceleration of digital transformation was one of the most striking impacts of the pandemic. Video conferencing, contactless payments and conversational AI were just three of the technologies that saw massive adoption rates during 2020 as organisations scrambled to enable employees to work remotely, while helping customers to safely transact in-store and self-serve online. Contact centre employees in the healthcare, travel, financial, retail and insurance sectors found themselves inundated with calls, while they adjusted to working from home themselves. Many organisations quickly implemented chatbot solutions to address this quandary. According to Gartner, penetration rates of conversational AI increased by 20%-50% in 2020, up from a range of 5%-20% in 2019 and chatbots are projected to see 100% increase in the next two to five years.

Increasingly, companies of all sizes are seeing AI as a table-stakes solution for ensuring consistent, valuable support for customers from all backgrounds. Artificial Intelligence is at the core of any company's strategy for self-service and customer support. The AI environment also assists employees in accessing information quickly and supports business leaders in collecting and analysing larger amounts of data. Let's explore just some of the ways that AI in the contact centre can improve your CX. When used correctly, Artificial Intelligence tools like Agent Assistants and Chatbots can transform the brand and customer experience.