Arun Mani: Managers know every agent’s capabilities. This knowledge – about who knows what and how well-trained they are – must be manually applied by a manager during ticket assignment exercises. Software exists that can capture this knowledge and create a skill-based routing mechanism.
AI can read incoming tickets (in an inbox or a chat window) and estimate which currently-available agent can solve any given ticket with minimal effort. Perhaps they possess the right skills for the task, or they solved a very similar ticket in the last hour. AI-powered routing considers a host of factors before sending the ticket to an agent. Chatbots can also allow for ‘early triaging’ by the customers themselves – they can select the issue they’re facing from a list of options, allowing the ticket to be routed to an agent specializing in rectifying that issue.
‘Noise Cancelation’ is another example of AI-powered routing. Consider this example: On Social Media, like Twitter, your brand might be the subject of significant discussion by customers.
Customer complaints could occur in a comment thread for a marketing campaign-related advertisement. This comment thread could consist primarily of praise for your campaign or product. However, complaints and remarks of dissatisfaction could be lodged within this string of appreciation. A customer could comment something like, “Hey, great ad, but could you help me rebook my canceled flight first?”. These are customer support questions.
Traditionally, companies employ a social media team that manually parses through comments to identify these complaints. AI, however, can cut through the clutter and identify the 5-10% of tweets that are customer support issues, convert them to tickets, and route them to the right person. This saves businesses tremendous effort and human resources.