It's the best and worst time to be in semiconductors right now. Silicon Valley investors are once again owning up to their namesakes and taking a deep interest in next-generation silicon, with leading lights like Graphcore in the United Kingdom hitting unicorn status while weirdly named and stealthy startups like Groq in the Bay Area grow up. Growth in chips capable of processing artificial intelligence workflows is expected to swell phenomenally over the coming years. As Asa Fitch at the Wall Street Journal noted yesterday, "Demand for chips specialized for AI is growing at such a pace the industry can barely keep up. Sales of such chips are expected to double this year to around $8 billion and reach more than $34 billion by 2023, according to Gartner projections."

Building on my April 2018 column "Using AI, Bots, Big Data, and Analytics to Reduce Demand for Support"1, one of the seven vexing challenges facing customer experience (CX) leaders, today I'll address the second challenge to increase First Contact Resolution (FCR). The power of AI, bots, Big Data, and analytics can now enable us to address the overall goal "How can we create and sustain a consistent and awesome customer experience across multiple channels & touch points?" and thereby increase sustainable revenues, realize higher margins, and sustain greater levels of customer satisfaction and loyalty. Let's dig into the second challenge, Increase FCR. Study after study has confirmed that first contact resolution in the contact center and other support functions is the biggest driver of customer satisfaction2. However, most companies rely overly much on point statistics like average FCR, and they neglect the fact that customers today start their inquiry or search for support online, failing that in the IVR system, only to find themselves speaking, emailing, or chatting with a customer service agent.

Vodafone is trialling new voice authentication services, expanding the capabilities of its chatbot TOBi and working on 24/7 social media care and its'Message Us' service as it looks to improve its customer service through a focus on new technology. The company is trialling the new voice authentication service to make it easier for its customers to verify their identity, access their details quickly and receive an account update through Amazon's personal assistant Alexa. Updates include billing data account details and information about extras. "From an internal standpoint the move to voice is to do with fixing problems. It wasn't a tech question it was a business question – what can we do to help our customers?"