{"id":27601,"date":"2023-10-12T14:36:09","date_gmt":"2023-10-12T13:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"\/gb\/en\/blog\/?p=27601"},"modified":"2023-11-28T11:10:04","modified_gmt":"2023-11-28T11:10:04","slug":"ask-the-expert-ai-impact-contact-centres","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/gb\/en\/blog\/ask-the-expert-ai-impact-contact-centres\/","title":{"rendered":"Ask the Expert: What Impact Will AI Have on Contact Centres and Agents?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2018Ask the Expert\u2019 is a series of interviews RingCentral runs with influential thought leaders from around the world, including UC and CX consultants and analysts. In this series, we aim to find out what\u2019s at the cutting edge of UCaaS and CCaaS.<\/span><\/p>\n

For this month\u2019s instalment, RingCentral\u2019s Ian Nevin, Director of International Consultant Relation<\/a>s, spoke with Nerys Corfield, Director of<\/span> Injection Consulting<\/span><\/a> \u2013 a contact centre consultant \u2013 about the rise of AI and its impact on contact centres, especially how it impacts the role of the contact centre agent.<\/span><\/p>\n

Can you first tell us a bit about your background and experience in the contact centre industry?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Yes, sure. Well, I spent 18 years working in contact centre outsourcing, managing lots of different customers. I\u2019d say about 70% of my work was for inbound contact centres, and 30% was outbound. I worked for many really big, amazing brands across various sectors, including telecoms, utilities, automotive and education.<\/span><\/p>\n

From a relatively young age I was responsible for owning the happiness of the clients, the commercials of each client and the operational delivery of the outsourced service.\u00a0 It is a relentless world where you are exposed to many different clients, many different challenges and it creates an inherent focus on delivering excellence and constantly looking to improve contact centre performance.<\/span>
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\n<\/span>In 2015 I made the step to becoming an independent consultant. I landed more in the CC Tech space working with vendors and their resellers and I now look to bridge the gap between tech and ops ensuring the ambitions and the realities from the front line are front and centre when navigating the path through CC Tech investment.<\/span>
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\n<\/span>As well as conduct audits using a proven framework I judge prestigious awards and take any chance to talk about the realities and the future of contact centres at industry events or on podcasts.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Perfect, thanks. So, from your experience of auditing contact centres and talking to agents, how do they feel about AI?\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n

That’s a really interesting question, and the answer is it all comes down to how well the organisation decides to communicate with the advisor community about the rationale and how the AI will be deployed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Nerys<\/p>\n

One of the questions I always ask advisors is: out of all the interactions you have in a day, how many of those do you think could be handled by self-service tools and automation?<\/span><\/p>\n

Most people recognise that there’s still an awful lot of interactions that could be done through self-service, or that should be digitally assisted and the advisors are keen to highlight these \u2018intents\u2019 to the businesses who are open to hearing them as a valuable resource.<\/span><\/p>\n

What about the benefits of AI? What should contact centres expect?<\/b><\/h2>\n

Customer experience benefits<\/b><\/h3>\n

Good question. AI should be supercharging every element of the customer experience. I don’t remember who coined this, but I think it’s spot on \u2013 in contact centres, the application of AI can be summarised by four As:<\/span><\/p>\n