Agents of change

Call center agents are often asked to do the impossible: Make every customer happy—while struggling with slow tech, increased workloads, stress, and burnout. Thankfully, many in the world of CX are discovering how to spell relief: AI.

According to “The New CX Priorities,” a new industry report from Freshworks, CX leaders must treat customer support as a strategic function with far-reaching impact across the organization. The report suggests what their top five priorities should be for 2023—as distilled from conversations with customer support leaders in the CX space.

Focusing on agent experience—in addition to customer experience—is among the top priorities to improve the quality of customer support. Like customer experience, agent experience (AX) focuses on all aspects of a customer support agent’s engagement with the business—from tools and workflows to leadership support and agent wellbeing—to help them do their jobs efficiently and easily. With AI-enabled technology in the mix, usually implemented as agent-assist technology in customer support,  AX is on the cusp of disruption.

AI can streamline business processes and improve agent well-being by taking care of mundane and repetitive tasks. This way, agents can concentrate on more complex and specialized work—which is more satisfying and often higher-paying. Companies will benefit from more positive customer interactions. “AI is becoming the human agent’s buddy, listening in on conversations, finding answers to questions from a knowledge base, suggesting the next best actions, and helping understand customer sentiment,” notes Max Ball, principal analyst at Forrester, in an article.

Approaching AI with caution

Agent-facing AI allows companies to experiment with AI before putting it to broader use. It’s typically less risky than customer-facing AI, where its application can impact customer experiences directly. A perfect example is the current excitement around generative AI and how companies can quickly yet cautiously approach it with tools such as Freddy AI. To cite an example of agent-assist AI working in the backend, Sling TV, a leading streaming TV service provider in the US, has increased its customer issue resolution rate to 85% while reducing the resolution time to under two minutes.

Getting AI right will truly be a game-changer for all parties involved.

Customer experience means more than just meeting customer needs. From omnichannel brand experiences and conversational messaging to intuitive AI, CX today is the sum of everything that adds value. Customers will only opt for brands focusing on the right CX priorities in these turbulent market conditions. To grow customer value, customer service leaders must continue to put human needs and realities at the core of their decisions and investments—and use AI in the right way to further enhance it in the short as well as the long term.

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