“Hello, AI Speaking. How Can I Help You?”

Although playful by design, the title of this article is more accurate than many people realize. Today’s contact center is driven by artificial intelligence (AI) to create a hyper-personalized experience that leverages customer and employee data to provide a predictive and prescriptive customer journey. In fact, over the last few years, 23 percent of organizations have integrated AI into their contact centers. And among them, 73 percent introduced AI in the past year. Why is the phone suddenly ringing off the hook for AI-based service-operation optimization? According to Forbes, it’s the explosive growth of widely available cloud services and machine-learning tools that have put powerful new AI capabilities in the hands of call centers to improve customer service in all forms.

The timing for AI to be fully embraced in contact centers could not be better. In March , Indeed, a subsidiary of Japan-based Recruit Co., had almost 75,000 job openings within call centers that can’t be filled fast enough. Zendesk underscores this issue in its Customer Experience Trends Report by stating, “Use of AI becomes paramount because 42 percent of customer service leaders expect requests to grow, whereas just 36 percent expect to be able to expand headcount. This gap represents the sweet spot where AI can help.”

Read the full article at SMARTCustomerService.com