Create AI + CX Agent Synergies: Frost & Sullivan Shows You How

The more satisfied your CX agents, the lower their attrition rate, the greater their productivity, and the more likely their customers will exit their interactions satisfied, which of course creates greater brand loyalty. All of which expands your customer base, lowers your costs, and boosts your revenues in what can only be described as a virtuous circle.

So: How do you start this circle and how do you keep it going?

In its recent white paper, Unleashing the Power of AI and Super Agents to Transform Customer Experience, top analyst firm Frost & Sullivan lays down its best practices for creating these conditions by bringing together live CX agents and artificial intelligence. Each contributes to the other’s continual improvement.

The white paper notes first off how the Covid-19 pandemic forced companies to “rethink the balance of self-service and live agents” as call volumes went through the roof overnight while tens of thousands of CX agents were suddenly sidelined. Frost & Sullivan continues: “Now, with the right tools, it’s possible to achieve this balance and improve customer satisfaction today.”

Now. With the right tools. Today.

I’ll briefly recap the white paper’s main findings below. But I don’t want to wait until the end of this blog to recommend you watch our panel of experts discuss the Frost & Sullivan findings in our on-demand webcast available now: Supercharge Customer Service and Agent Productivity With AI.

AI-Powered Super Agents: Top findings

• Driving self-service—It seems counter-intuitive but, as more customers more regularly interact with your organization online, one of the best ways to boost their brand loyalty is to empower them to self-serve. A great many customers actually prefer self-serve to agent interactions and the easier, and more efficient, you make it, the more your customers keep coming back. The white paper makes clear this effort requires a cross-channel conversational AI platform that provides virtual agents capable of engaging with customers as naturally as would a live agent.
• Redefining the Agent Experience—High agent attrition, an age-old contact center problem, is often accepted as a necessary part of the business. But to quote the ol’ Gershwin brothers of Broadway fame: “It ain’t necessarily so.” The right hiring practices, the right training, the right digital transformation strategy, and the right agent-assist technologies make all the difference in the world—perhaps especially for your burgeoning work-from-home CX agent workforce. There’s no reason you can’t knock down your company’s 40 percent agent attrition rate to 30, 20, or even 10 percent.
• Leveraging AI for Agents—Turns out about half of a CX agent’s time is spent helping the customer; the other half is spent finding relevant data and documenting the interaction—a good portion of that second half can be automated to the benefit of customer, agent, and company alike. The latest assistive AI technologies make agents’ jobs easier and, by enabling them to spend more of their time working more deeply with customers and their issues, more satisfying and productive.

Take the Next Step

I’ve just skimmed the surface here. For all the actionable details—as well as really instructive survey results of IT decision makers plus [24]7.ai™ client examples that bring everything discussed in the white paper to life—get the Frost & Sullivan white paper.

You should also check out the following:

• On-demand webcast: Supercharge Customer Service and Agent Productivity With AI
• Technology web page: AI-HI Teaming: AI Assisting Agents
• Technology web page: Conversational AI: What Is It and How Does It Work?
• BPO Services web page: [24]7 Agent Services™
• Product web page: [24]7.ai Managed Customer Engagement
• Infographic: Transform CX with AI and Super Agents