Founder & CEO of Centrical, the next-gen employee engagement and performance management platform.
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“AI copilot” is a rapidly emerging SaaS category, promising to increase productivity across role types and industries by taking on routine tasks. But how does AI copilot improve contact center agent performance? How does it act as an assistant?
This is an especially important question to consider as we exit the era of autopilot and enter the copilot era, where AI is enhancing human capabilities.
AI Copilot As A Superpower
The rise of AI copilots makes me think not of aviation, but of superheroes.
Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider, enabling his transformation into Spiderman. Clark Kent was born Superman. But Tony Stark, a regular human being with no physical superpowers (aside from his super-human intelligence) transforms into Iron Man because he has the right technology.
Tony Stark was not bitten by a radioactive spider or born on a faraway planet. He becomes a superhero thanks to a special suit and his AI assistant. JARVIS (“Just a Rather Very Intelligent System”) plays a critical role for Iron Man and the Avengers by processing information and delivering situational updates and targeted intelligence.
Like JARVIS, AI copilots can deliver a powerful, guided and personalized agent experience. It doesn’t aim to replace the agents but rather keeps agents aligned, motivated and knowledgeable, with targeted training, performance alerts and coaching. These AI-powered actions help shape behavioral patterns, translating into higher performance and, ultimately, an outstanding customer experience.
This is very similar to what AI copilots do for professionals across verticals. Given rising customer and employee expectations, this “superpower” can help contact centers and business process outsourcing (BPO). So, it would be fair to say that an AI copilot is the everyday JARVIS for agents, as opposed to Edwin Jarvis, Tony’s human assistant in the Marvel comic books—which I’ll get to shortly.
Agent Copilots In Action
Consider this example: Mike is a contact center agent whose performance is below target. His manager, Jane, has too low a bandwidth to thoroughly investigate the root cause. This is where an agent copilot comes in, quickly evaluating Mike’s past interactions and evaluation forms and formulating related questions to identify areas of weakness. In this case, the symptom is a low conversation rate. Diving in further, it seems Mike isn’t asking enough questions and therefore doesn’t fully understand customers’ needs.
After identifying the root cause (the behavior), the agent copilot helps Mike focus on asking more questions at the beginning of calls and sends targeted learning materials and coaching actions based on the identified gaps in the style of feedback that Mike responds to—competitive, supportive, etc. Jane receives this information from the AI analysis and knows how to coach Mike.
Thanks to this sequence, Mike can elevate his performance, providing a better customer experience and boosting his organization’s conversion rate and revenue. Additionally, the copilot has alerted Jane to Mike’s improvements, suggesting Jane award Mike a badge. And with this newfound confidence is a higher likelihood that Mike will stay with the company.
Agent Copilots: The Prequel
Let’s pivot to this scenario without an AI copilot. Edwin Jarvis could never have the bandwidth or resources to deliver just-in-time, personalized coaching or warnings to Tony—which could have disastrous results. In this case, Jane would have to review an enormous amount of data to identify the symptom and then determine the root cause and next best action—an inefficient, time-consuming process. This could have resulted in generic coaching that lacked the personal touch that Mike needed. By the time Jane could coach Mike, his poor practices could have become a hard-to-break habit.
All of this could happen more quickly than it would have without AI. With AI, this process is much more scalable in a way that would have been impossible in the past.
Equipping Your Superheroes With Agent Copilots
This is just one example of how an AI copilot delivers a guided, personalized agent experience. It is involved in every step of the process, from analyzing data to identifying bottlenecks and weaknesses and quickly course-correcting by prompting the next best actions (and shaping patterns). This all leads to an elevated agent performance experience—and a better customer experience. The AI copilot can learn more about the agent over time, enabling a truly personalized experience and optimized insights.
AI copilots are proving to be powerful personal assistants that help increase an agent’s “superpowers” (with no need for radioactive spiders). Contact center leaders would be well-advised to explore this technology to evolve with customer expectations and the requirements of a modern front-line workforce.
Common Pitfalls To Avoid
Like any new technology, AI copilots come with challenges and concerns. One concern is the time involved for the copilot to become “smart” and learn what it needs to before making recommendations and identifying individual preferences. While not long-term, this should be a consideration.
Additionally, there could be concern that copilots might adversely affect human agents’ creativity and autonomy. While this is understandable, an AI copilot could help agents better focus on actions such as creative problem-solving and taking an empathetic approach to customers. By positioning the copilot as such, teams will understand that the technology is not meant to replace agents but to empower them and increase their impact.
Finally, user adoption is a concern; some might be hesitant to embrace AI copilots. Organizations can navigate this challenge with a solid change management program.
In an upcoming article, I plan to speak more about this superpower from the perspective of a front-line supervisor. In the meantime, I recommend learning more about elevating the employee experience—a critical component in building a modern, efficient front line.
This is only the beginning. AI copilots are rapidly growing and becoming a critical component of the front line. And despite it still evolving, I do not see it being overwritten by Ultron anytime soon.
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