Alexa, Google Home, and other rapidly advancing digital assistants have increased customers' willingness to engage with machines as they have come to not only expect, but appreciate their conversational nature. This attitude shift is transforming how traditional call centers should be doing business – using conversational AI bots to deliver positive user experiences and operational savings. Identifying where and how to implement Artificial Intelligence is one of the biggest challenges companies face when considering self-service. Read on to see how SmartAction has solved this issue, and many more, to enable true integration of AI into call center operations. SmartAction was founded as an artificial intelligence research company and has since evolved into the leading provider of AI-powered customer self-service solutions.

One of the challenges of managing a large retail contact center operation is coordinating the moving pieces of a seasonal ramp. In my role as Director of Global Customer Care for the world's largest floral organization, I had to increase my phone staff from 100 to up to 2000 representatives to meet the demand of our high call volume seasons. Most contact center organizations face this similar business challenge. Health Care contact centers ramp up to handle call volume during open enrollment from October through January. Even collections organizations grow their staff to initiate more outbound calls in the summer and early fall to increase receivables.

This blog was adapted from our November 2017 webinar, Designing a Self-Service Strategy With Your Customers & Agents in Mind, where we identified the Intelligent Front Door as a great way to practically introduce AI to your contact center. "The process of determining what to automate can be a journey because there are so many places to start. I am going to show and discuss a small roadmap example that's universal to any type of business. A few real-world examples of where to start with AI are an intelligent front door, authentication, and payments and collections. These are typical opportunities for AI in your call center. You can start with any of those solutions, and they can all blend together. An intelligent front door is what you would think of as a traditional IVR replacement. An intelligent front door allows you to have the ease of conversational communication with your customers as a first touch, which is really important for easing into AI and helping the customer feel ...

Artificial intelligence (AI) technology has risen to the forefront of call center automation priorities. Its promises to lower costs, increase efficiency, boost productivity, and enhance the customer experience are proven now that so many brands have introduced call center AI. But what drove them to this technology? As we all know, you don't need a solution if you don't have a problem. Let's examine the top four challenges that call centers are facing today and how AI has proven to be a valuable solution.