News & Advice 

By: Ned Rossini

Okay, I admit it… the new digital world of generative AI in the contact center is very cool and very useful. No duh, right? Why such an obvious statement from me to start the blog? Well, because as a 20+ year contact center person, doing everything from being an agent on the phone to running a team of a couple hundred

to now being on the sales side… most of the stuff I have seen before generative AI comes into the contact center has been “pretty cool at times and somewhat useful”. Here is what I mean by that… Take reporting, for example (always so easy to pick on, lol!). Everyone loves to talk reporting and pitch reporting and it gets very fancy and visually pleasing and looks great on a pitch deck but at the end of the day… it’s still just reporting, right (that question was for the operations folks who

are in the trenches every day)? I mean, you have 32 different options for your reports to pull, but you end up using the same 3 or 4 reports that you always used. And don’t get me started on “Conversational AI” that was supposed to change the game… It’s pretty cool and somewhat useful but it wasn’t a game changer, IMO. 

Generative AI and the tools surrounding it are not like that. They are unlike anything I have ever seen before and will, in fact, change the contact center (already occurring). The reason is simple. It leads to a much better customer experience and yes, I use the words “much better” on purpose. So, for those (like me until recently) who have heard of generative AI and have a decent idea of the premise but have not had a ton of experience or time looking into it, let me explain it to you as simply as I can. Generative AI is taking the world’s best Knowledge Base, making the info it communicates instantaneous and user-friendly, and it is even thinking ahead of you and the caller (or chatter, or whatever) to anticipate what the need is and it does so with great accuracy and understanding. So, when your customer calls in and asks a question, Generative AI hears/sees/reads that and provides a great answer for the agent to communicate to the caller (or chatter, or whatever channel) and does it quickly and easily for the agent.

Here is an example… So, compare it to the good ol’ days when yours truly was on the call center floor and an agent had a question. They put the person on hold, put up their hand or question flag, the supervisor makes their way over to them as soon as they can (sometimes quickly, sometimes not) and then the agent asks the supervisor the question and the supervisor educates the agent on what to say. But, what if you had the perfect agent who already knew all of the answers and then could communicate them in an effective way to the consumer? Well, that’s what Generative AI does (one of the things) for the contact center staff. So, now, when the consumer communicates with the contact center agent through whatever channel and the Generative AI hears the consumer say, “How do I do a return on my item?”… the answer is quickly and accurately made available to the agent, and they handle it right then and there. The non-voice channels are even more streamlined because, for example, if a question is entered into the chat, the generative AI becomes even more useful. After all, the answer can be auto-generated in a lot of situations. Not all, but a lot!

How does this help? Well, here are the top 3 reasons that are top of mind for me: Well, for starters, you get accurate information going to the consumer. The info provided by the generative AI tool is usually 100% accurate. It may need a little tweaking but the rate of accuracy from Generative AI compared to the knowledge of

1. The agents are a nice plus for Generative AI.
2. Secondly, it speeds up the learning curve exponentially. Now, when a new (or even a struggling tenured agent) gets on that consumer interaction, they are equipped with the best and most user-friendly knowledge base ever created (literally) and they have as much accurate info right at their fingertips that would have taken a very long time to acquire back before Generative AI.
3. It stops mistakes (mainly QA and Compliance Issues) from occurring before they even start. So, is it a QA tool? Yes! In many ways, but the most useful for me as an operator would be, that the agent is not making QA or compliance mistakes because Generative AI is walking them through what to say and not making mistakes.

So, is Generative AI perfect? Does it take care of every single situation? No! Of course, not! But, it is the most useful and “game changer” thing I have seen in my 20+ years in this business. I give Generative AI an 8.5 on a scale of 1-10 for the useful tools category. You will still need to tweak and work out and keep an eye on things, but this new Customer Experience tool is, in fact, changing the way we do things in the contact center.