A speaker line-up featuring time-saving business tech leaders, Formula 1 celebrities, and futurists will never disappoint. And TechHQ made sure to take a front-row seat at the invite-only Zoomtopia Leaders Connect event in London, UK, to find out how companies can get ahead using a growing ecosystem of enterprise apps and hardware.

What is Zoom?

Zoom’s popularity rocketed when the business world went big on remote working. “Let’s have a meeting,” quickly became, “Let’s Zoom.” And while the tech firm – headquartered in San Jose, California, US – is immensely proud of its status as a verb, there’s much more to Zoom beyond enabling video telephony.

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“Zoom is meetings, but Zoom as a platform has expanded a lot,” Smita Hashim, Chief Product Officer at the firm, told the media at a press briefing ahead of her Zoomtopia Leaders Connect: London keynote.

Today, Zoom is active in supporting flexible workspaces, employee engagement, contact center operations, and remote maintenance using augmented reality – to give just a few examples of time-saving business tech solutions available to enterprises.

Also, while it’s of little surprise to learn that Zoom has – like almost every other enterprise software provider – introduced gen AI into its suite of tools, the fact that it provides those features at no additional cost to paying users is a differentiator.

Welcome to our new chief product officer, Smita Hashim!

Bringing an impressive background of innovative leadership in the collaboration space and building upon products that continue to be vital to enterprise businesses, we look forward to her contributions at Zoom! pic.twitter.com/nmSH1W4ouM

— Zoom (@Zoom) February 6, 2023

Hashim points out that you don’t need to engage large AI models for all tasks. And the federated architecture, which includes algorithms from OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, and Zoom’s own designs, makes it more cost-effective – picking the best solution for a given request.

Reflecting on time-saving business tech solutions enabled using gen AI, one of the most useful to organizations is the ability of large language models (LLMs) to provide meeting summaries and generate a list of actions.

Zoom users have this feature, which means that attendees can fully engage with what’s happening in the meeting, rather than being distracted by having to make notes. The summaries are so popular that in-person attendees routinely hit the join button even when no one is dialing in, to enable the digital productivity features – which include presentation coaching – for everyone in the room.

Fans of stoic philosophy will recall that we have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak, and modern business tools such as AI-enabled meeting coaching let you put that to the test. Apps record ratios of talking to listening, speech rate, and tone – to list just some of the user feedback that’s available.

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How contact center AI helps businesses and customers

Having a record of events gives team members who couldn’t attend the means to quickly catch up on what happened, without having to listen back to the online discussion in full. Plus, staff wanting to prepare for a call can instruct the AI companion to summarize not just one, but a whole series of meetings to get up to speed on projects and understand how customer relationships are progressing.

Also, if you’ve been on holiday for a week and return to hundreds of chat messages, the AI companion can summarize the list of unread items for you – another tick for time-saving business tech. “Zoom team chat is one of the jewels in our platform,” Hashim told the audience in her keynote.

In just 18 months, the company – known for its online meetings, but delivering on many more fronts – has added 600 features to its product suite. Having translated captions generated in real-time means that conversations can flow much more naturally, overcoming language barriers. And smart recordings include chapters, based on key meeting events, making it easier to look back through those files.

Time-saving business tech for contact centers

The fact that so many sales calls happen on Zoom speaks to why the company launched an omnichannel contact center product, and – as the presenters explained – it builds on the AI assistant capabilities that we’ve just discussed.

On TechHQ, we’ve written about how customer experience (CX) plus employee experience (EX) equals business growth, and the point was made again in London about how CX and EX go hand in hand.

Speaking in the first of the afternoon’s panel sessions, Oru Mohiuddin – Senior Research Manager at IDC, a market intelligence provider – reminded the audience that contact centers can’t have happy customers without happy agents. And AI summaries can help with that.

“When calls get transferred from agent to agent, having a call summary in real-time has a multiplier effect on customer and agent experience,” said Hashim. “I want users to have high expectations and to push us to do more.”

Driving secure messaging and fan engagement: Zoom is an innovation partner of Oracle Red Bull Racing. Jack Harington (left) – Senior Partnership Manager at Oracle Red Bull Racing – and motor racing legend David Coulthard explained how time-saving business tech makes a difference in Formula 1. Image credit: JT/TechHQ.

And on the topic of high expectations, it was fascinating to hear about how communications platforms drive the pinnacle of motorsport – Formula 1. Invited to participate in the discussion were Jack Harington, Senior Partnership Manager at Oracle Red Bull Racing, and motor racing legend David Coulthard – a multiple Grand Prix winner, broadcaster, and businessman.

In a video accompanying the Zoomtopia Leaders Connect: London session, Christian Horner – Team Principal of Oracle Red Bull Racing – told viewers that fast and secure messaging will always be critical to race day success. And with 21 out of 22 wins to their name in this year’s Formula 1 championship, Oracle Red Bull Racing knows all about success.

Zoom’s partnership with Red Bull Racing is more than just a branding exercise. The Formula 1 team uses the communication platform to enable live conversations between crew at the track and staff based in the operations room. “Red Bull is pretty picky about how it picks its innovation partners,” Harington told attendees.

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Regulations restrict the number of team personnel to 60 people over the race weekend, and so teams have parallel operations back at the factory to advise on strategy and other technical matters. And it says a lot that Oracle Red Bull Racing chose Zoom above other solutions for its in-the-loop decision-making.

Another reason for why the combination works well is the events platform. Harington comments that Red Bull has become one of the most followed sports teams in the world. And the 2023 F1 championship winners want to engage with those fans.

Running member experiences using Zoom Events – which can handle events of all kinds: in-person, virtual or hybrid – gives Red Bull the chance to make fans loyal by giving back to them. Zoom uses the platform to host its annual Zoomtopia developer conference.

The time-saving business tech firm wants to be a working example of how to create an effective hybrid workplace, and makes great use of the solutions that it and its partners have developed.

Today, companies want flexible workplaces that are modular and can be reconfigured. And in the exhibit area were examples of Zoom Room solutions from DTEN, Jabra, Logitech, Neat, and Poly.

Speaking with the Jabra team, features include multiple cameras for 180-degree views, physical whiteboard integration (making it easy for remote attendees to see written text and drawings), and sound boundary settings.

Zoom has an intelligent director feature that adds TV production touches so that attendees joining remotely feel part of the action alongside in-person colleagues. And engagement segues nicely to another one of the big themes at the London show.

Earlier this year, Zoom acquired Workvivo – an employee communication and engagement platform – and the tool has been integrated into the Zoom client. Gideon Pridor, Head of Marketing at Workvivo, pointed to some big customers such as Virgin. All 40 companies in the Virgin Group – a total of 60,000 employees – now use WorkView, including Richard Branson himself.

Pridor makes the point that it’s not practical for enterprises to bring 60,000 people together physically, but employee engagement platforms let you do that digitally. It’s another example of time-saving business tech, in this case one that bridges office staff, hybrid workers, and those on the road, as well as front line workers. The tool was designed with mobile in mind right from the beginning.

CEO’s can cut out intermediaries and reach out directly to staff to feel the pulse of their organization. Modern employee engagement tools are a practical way for executive teams to develop a company culture, bring people closer to the business, and strengthen companies.

Preparing for the future – a guide

Given how unpredictable the future can be, the question becomes how best can companies prepare? The sudden success of generative AI has taken firms by surprise. And perhaps one tip – based on the last talk of the day by Sophie Hackford, a futurist – is to keep an open mind.

Global AI perspective: futurist Sophie Hackford commented on how the world itself is becoming a computer, and highlighted opportunities for human-machine teaming. Image credit: JT/TechHQ.

“Tech is never its past,” she told the audience. “It’s something that’s all around us.” Hackford points out that computers are no longer just giant calculators and are starting to act more like the human brain. In fact, the world itself is fast becoming a computer. Warehouses are automated, vehicles can drive themselves (to a degree), and satellites create data that’s designed for machines – such as hyperspectral imaging – rather than being accessible to the human eye.

Hackford notes that we are weaving computational landscapes, which include us through wearable devices. The natural world shouldn’t be forgotten too, as researchers provide a glimpse into fascinating topics such as fungal computing.

“Pea roots listen for the sound of water to guide their roots,” she adds.

With so much to puzzle, everyone needs more time – and time-saving business tech such as Zoom’s productivity tools can buy some of that back for all of us.

The post Time-saving tech for business: Zoom leaders connect in London appeared first on TechHQ.

The discipline of customer experience (CX) has traditionally been very human-focused, prioritizing the personal touch. However, the current wave of AI advancements has seen automation enter almost every facet of business, including CX. This has led to a debate as to which CX elements can be passed over to AI before it starts to degrade, especially in the context of contact centers. That being said, many organizations that offer customer support want to reap the cost and efficiency benefits that the technology offers.

TechHQ spoke to Hosam Hassan, the Director of CX Transformation Strategy at leading customer support provider PartnerHero, to find out how AI is impacting CX in the post-ChatGPT world.

THQ: Can you provide an overview of the current landscape of AI tools in CX? How are they being utilized in the industry today?

HH: “There are two sets of tools out there right now; I think of them as ‘pre-ChatGPT’ and ‘post-ChatGPT.’ In pre-ChatGPT, they’re using an older technology where they were building, let’s say, custom models for each of the customer support teams that would be using the AI product.

“Today, they’re using more tools of the post-ChatGPT world where there’s less work for you to do to set up those tools, and there are several categories that customer support benefits the most.

“You have the agent-assist tools where AI is being used, for example, in a help desk to suggest articles to the agent, suggest responses, or translate things. These will still require an agent to be in the loop, but the agent is the one to finally send a response.

“Then you have the AI solutions that actually respond to customers directly, resolving issues without an agent in the loop. You don’t really have to write these intricate responses. You just give the AI a couple of bullet points of how to solve the issue and it goes ahead and writes its own message in a different language and gets out the response to the customer almost immediately.“

Empowering businesses globally, PartnerHero delivers exceptional outsourcing solutions with a proven track record. Source: Shutterstock

THQ: How would you advise an organization preparing for the integration of AI in its CX strategy, taking into account the potential challenges and opportunities?

HH: “I started my career as a customer support agent, and I could tell you right now the things that an agent would want automated are the things that they’re doing manually every day – the boring tasks!

“So start with talking to your team, find out what is super repetitive for them, what the boring tasks are, and see if you can automate those pieces first. Involve your customer support team and understand what they hate doing.

“For example, pre-AI, you would have a help desk manager and that person’s job is literally to receive all the tickets to read them, tag the ticket, route it to the right team, put a category on it, and then possibly send an auto-response. All of those things today, an AI bot can do. It can understand the intent of the customer, it can tag it with the sentiment, the category, and even route it to the right team. So that takes away maybe 50 percent of the work that an agent would have to do. All they have to do then is solve the problem and send the final response to the customer.”

THQ: How can CX professionals adapt their skills and approaches to effectively work alongside AI tools and technology?

HH: “Before AI, when help centers came out, agents would spend 50 percent of their time working on tickets and maybe 50 percent of the time working on creating self-serve solutions like help center articles and macros, which are canned responses.

“What they could do today is actually work on training the AI platform. The customer support agent is the most knowledgeable about the customer issues, so they should be looking at roles like chatbot builder, AI trainer, or prompt engineer.

“Leaders should get involved with the AI, make recommendations to the person building the bot, and see if they can take some of the work off their agents’ plates. Then agents can focus more on becoming more technical, maybe learn a new role or get certified in AI.”

PartnerHero’s outsourcing agreements are flexible and customizable, adapting to the unique requirements and goals of each client. Source: Shutterstock

THQ: Could you share insights on how PartnerHero is approaching AI in the context of CX and what services are being rolled out to support businesses in their managed CX transition?

HH: “In 2023, instead of going against AI and thinking of it as a competitor, we brought a couple of AI thought leaders onto our team, and we’ve essentially partnered with two companies that provide AI.

“What we’re doing now is offering not only outsourced teams to our customers but implementation of a Managed Help Desk, like Zendesk, Gorgias, and a couple of others.

“Then we’re also providing Managed Bots, where we can go in and build customers a bot from scratch. We understand their workflows because we’re already providing them outsourcing, and we’ll say, ‘instead of doing 100 percent human support, we found an opportunity to do about 20 to 30 percent through automation and AI, then the rest we’ll have escalated to our agents’.

“So we’re really embracing the change and evolution of the space and we want to be a resource for our customers, so they can trust us.  We’ll take the weight off their shoulders so they don’t have to go learn how to do this or have to hire somebody new.”

THQ: How long would it take to build a Managed Bot?

HH: “It takes anywhere from a week to three weeks to get it up and running. With traditional products, you have to do some training on your existing data, but for newer products it’s generative AI. It’ll learn from your help center, it’ll learn from your help desk tickets, and you just have to guide it on how you want it to answer.”

THQ: Many businesses are interested in AI for CX but are concerned about the complexity of implementation. How does PartnerHero simplify the process of adopting AI, and what strategies are in place to guide clients through this journey?

HH: “We try to remove the technology from the conversation. I think that’s what complicates things. We start with understanding their use cases in the same way that we have to understand their use cases for outsourcing. We ask them, for example, what tickets are super repetitive, what the team does on a day-to-day that seems annoying or repetitive, and we would just map out those types of interactions. Then our team would say, ‘OK, we’ve noticed that we could quickly tag tickets for this customer; let’s start with that.’ Then, we build trust with our customers.

“We might not even send automated responses to their customers immediately, we would just start by tagging tickets. Then, once they trust that process and feel confident in the AI, we’ll implement something else. It’s more of a phased approach,  we like to teach them along the way and show them exactly what we’re doing, so it’s not like a closed box or secret.”

THQ: In the context of CX, there’s a fine balance between human empathy and the efficiency that AI can bring. Could you share how PartnerHero addresses this balance and ensures that the introduction of AI enhances, rather than degrades, the customer experience?

HH: “Our approach right now, at least in this first year, is to build trust around the technology. We 100 percent believe in a hybrid model – we don’t think that 100 percent human is going to work any longer, but we also don’t think 100 percent AI is going to work at all.

“What we do is try to find opportunities to automate things that agents are doing on the back end that the customer doesn’t really know about. So tagging tickets, suggesting answers, translating. Then we leave the agent in the loop to do the final approval. That way they could add any final touches or they could recognize when a customer is having a poor interaction with the company and could stop it right there. We’re still in the building trust phase and we’re taking it very slow to get these tools up and running. ”

PartnerHero provides scalable solutions, allowing businesses to adjust the scale of services based on their needs, whether it’s scaling up during peak periods or scaling down during quieter times. Source: Shutterstock

THQ: Can you provide examples of successful AI implementations in the CX domain where ParterHero has been involved and the positive impact it’s had on clients’ businesses?

HH: “With one of our partners, we’ve built an automation that essentially understands the intent of the customer and suggests the best article or the best answer for the agent. Now, the agent doesn’t have to go dig in multiple systems or jump around to different platforms; they get to just stay in the help desk. They get a little pop-up on the right-hand side saying, ‘Hey, we understood this ticket, this is the process that you should follow,’ and that speeds up the agent.

“Another example would be translation. If a customer contacts one of our reps in a different language that we don’t officially support, we can easily translate that through an AI plugin and then respond to that customer with the details they need to resolve it. It has definitely enhanced our efficiency and our skill set on our agent side .

“We aim for 20 to 30 percent increase in automation, so we’re automating 20 to 30 percent of the tasks that are being handled by an agent, and that’s on the lower end. We’ve seen examples of companies that do anywhere from 80 to 90 percent.”

PartnerHero is helping businesses design AI systems that solve their unique problems and take on the technical challenges that go with them. The company offers unparalleled in-house expertise from top software providers as well as access to best-in-breed chatbot platforms. Contact PartnerHero today to discuss how it can embed AI in your business and unlock the full potential of your CX.

The post Balancing AI efficiency and human empathy in customer support: A CX leader’s approach appeared first on TechHQ.

Nowadays, it is rare to find a company that relies exclusively on one piece of software. While one can optimistically begin with a simple tech stack, as the business grows and scales, more apps and features are added to meet evolving needs. Eventually, such a setup can become disjointed and difficult to manage, ultimately hindering productivity.

Handle all interactions in the familiar environment of Microsoft Teams

Wouldn’t it be much easier to handle all interactions in the application you’re already using every day and are familiar with, like Microsoft Teams? That way everything can be controlled through a familiar and unified interface.

This is possible with Luware Nimbus, an extended contact center integration for Microsoft Teams that enhances the platform with contact center and task routing functionality.

Source: Luware

With Luware Nimbus not only can you use Microsoft Teams for your entire enterprise telephony, including internal and external communications, but you can also distribute tasks from third-party systems through the intelligent routing logic. Say a customer requests support via the company website, this would typically create a new case in the CRM. With Luware Nimbus, the action can trigger the automatic creation of a new task which can be intelligently assigned to a suitable employee via Teams.

External task routing offers a lot of power and potential. With an intelligent routing system, you can easily distribute tasks from applications such as phone calls, leads, or support tickets fairly, for example, to the employee who has been idle the longest. As a result, resources are optimally allocated to increase business efficiency.

Distribute tasks to the best-suited employee

Luware Nimbus’ intelligent routing algorithm allows calls and tasks to be routed to individual users based on their skills or the priority of the task. External tasks on third-party systems are first created through a Microsoft Power Automate connector before being brought into the Luware Nimbus service queue and combined with other internal or external tasks. The Luware Nimbus task distribution algorithm will then distribute this workflow to appropriate users, and tasks can be moved or reprioritized at any time. Supervisors can also abort a task early using the Dashboard Supervision features.

Because everything is in the intuitive interface of Teams, employees will easily be able to learn how to set up, customize, and instantly implement workflows that involve external systems with the Workflow Editor, as they will be confident with the Teams-based controls.

Deep reporting for deep insights

Luware Nimbus also provides extensive and unified call reporting and analytics. All users can access dashboards on Teams which show real-time and historical data, covering call volumes, inquiries, workloads for hotlines, and more. By providing this data, employees can see that they are reaching their goals while supervisors can make informed decisions, monitor performance, and continuously optimize team members’ processes. Having all this functionality inside Teams also means employees don’t need to switch between multiple apps, download new binaries, or manage extra login credentials.

Source: Luware

Happy employees lead to happy customers

Ultimately, the unified platform and its incorporation of third-party systems make workers’ day-to-day tasks and responsibilities easier, so boosting morale. This translates to the customer, too; if agents can respond to inquiries more promptly due to increased productivity, they will be happier with their service and form a better brand impression.

One company that has seen business improvements since transitioning to Luware Nimbus is Credaris, an independent credit service provider offering easy and secure credit access. Its agents handle a high volume of calls and complex customer processes, so, to maintain its reputation of efficient and personalized service, the company needed a telephony solution that could support its ethos. After a lengthy evaluation process, decision-makers installed Teams for internal communications and Luware Nimbus as a contact center solution.

The Nimbus platform has been connected to the company’s external CRM to provide data that allows for callers and their personal advisors to be quickly identified. Customers can be connected directly to their advisor if they are free to take the call using availability-based routing. Indeed, skill-based routing means customers not yet registered in the CMS can be recognized and routed to an appropriate agent. The solution enables Credaris to provide the bespoke, efficient service it is known for.

Request a demo today to discover how Luware Nimbus can revolutionize your company’s task management and contact center operation

The post Simplify and streamline your IT with external task routing appeared first on TechHQ.

Outbound contact centers know that the key to converting customers is to have great conversations with them. Particularly in high-consideration industries — those where purchasing decisions are marked by careful deliberation — customers are looking for the brand to provide comprehensive information and personalized assistance to facilitate informed decisions.

Source: Regal

TechHQ takes a closer look at the five most common mistakes at  outbound contact centers.

1. Collecting phone numbers but not customer behaviors

Does this sound familiar? Lead comes in, you add them to a segment called “new prospects”, and you put them in a campaign that calls them X times a day for Y days.

Your data and tech strategy will dictate your outbound capabilities.

When all you have is a phone number, you are limited in how you could possibly personalize outbound plays. When your tech can’t capture prospect/customer behaviors in real time and match them to a unified customer profile, you are limited in how you can proactively engage the customer. It’s time to review both your data and tech strategy.

2. Reaching out when it’s easy for the contact center, not when it’s good for the customer

Engaging customers at key moments ensures that brands can provide the desired information and alleviate any concerns, helping to guide customers toward a confident purchase decision.

Getting this timing wrong puts the sale at risk – reach out too early, and customers may lose interest due to a lack of preparedness to make a decision; too late, and they might have already committed to a competitor. And if you’re reaching out when your staffing is right, that’s never going to be right for the customer.

3. Dialing More (or Faster) rather than prioritizing personalization

Legacy Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) software often includes a progressive or predictive dialer. Many outbound contact centers fall into the trap of using these features to call customers more often to try to get them to answer. Prioritizing speed and quantity of calls makes it very challenging to provide a personalized experience.

While these dialing modes might be efficient or let you call more people, there are much better ways to lift engagement rates.

4. Using the same message with every customer instead of the right message

Each prospect and customer has a different history and different aims. So why would the same script work for all of them? While it may be easiest to use the same script every time, even small customizations go a long way.

Start easy – if the customer has already indicated their preference online or told your team what they are looking for, don’t start from scratch. It will infuriate customers. And as you want to get more advances with your customized messaging, Branded Caller ID on your calls, location-specific opening lines, reminding the customer you know what they did with your brand or CS team, and demonstrating helpful understanding of their problem or objection before they bring it up are all good ways to get away from one staid message.

5. Relying on manual agent processes instead of AI-enabled solutions

Not too long ago, sales agents were entirely responsible for crafting every interaction with prospects. They would research the customer, decide what to say, the best time to say it, and when and how to follow up to maximize success. Now, thanks to significant advancements in artificial intelligence (AI), much of their work can be enhanced.

Virtual assistants can reach out to prospects the moment they show interest in your brand and craft natural, human-like follow-ups based on their intent, all with zero headcount. AI-generated message scripts can guide agents through calls once they do connect with a customer. AI Conversation Intelligence can enhance coaching, and automate the next best action.

Due to the sheer volume of customers and complexity of data involved, utilizing AI-driven solutions is now a necessity.

AI helps sales teams gain greater process efficiency, target and message accuracy, and more granular personalization. Doing so frees up agents from low-value, manual tasks, allowing them to pursue strategic ways to engage customers with targeted and personalized outreach.

Regal understands because they were in your shoes

The Regal founders also used legacy CCaaS dialers at previous companies, which led them to spam customers with multiple unknown calls. So they developed a new playbook to build the highest-answering, best-converting outbound calling funnel.

While legacy CCaaS software platforms make it difficult to modernize your outbound strategies, Regal.io was built specifically to enable their new customer-centric approach. And ultimately, Regal.io customers have reported a 547% ROI.

Source: Regal

William Lucas, the Senior Manager at online tutoring platform Club Z!, said:

“Regal.io instantly doubled our answer rates and improved productivity of our sales team. We have been able to consolidate what we used to do in three separate systems all into one place while personalizing our outreach to prospects.”

To learn more about how Regal can help your outbound contact center hit your growth goals, request a demo of its platform here.

The post Five mistakes to avoid at outbound contact centers appeared first on TechHQ.

When deciding which areas of their startup to invest in from the get-go , many founders and CEOs tend to dismiss customer experience (CX). Until customer support requests or product feedback starts to pile up, founders put CX on a back burner. . It is seen as a cost center, to be put off for as long as possible. Small businesses often have only a small number of staff available to achieve large goals, and that all-important ROI is more likely to be achieved by focusing on marketing campaigns, product development, or attracting capital investors, right?

Not necessarily.

If you were to be lured into a coffee shop by the tantalizing smell of roasting beans, but your barista was standoffish and unfriendly, even the most delicious cup of coffee is unlikely to convince you this shop should be your regular haunt, as the experience would be tainted by the attitude of the staff. Particularly if, across the road, another establishment served beverages just as tasty but with a smile and question about your day. Which of the two would deserve your customer loyalty?

The significant impacts of ignoring CX are backed up by research – a report from CB Insights found that 14 percent of startups fail because they ignore their customers.

CX is not just an expense; it’s a growth channel waiting to be harnessed. Research has shown that successful experience-led growth strategies can improve cross-sell rates by 15 to 25 percent and boost companies’ share of wallet by 5 to 10 percent. This is because the investments do not go unnoticed. A study from American Express found that customers will pay 17  more to do business with a firm that provides quality service.

As the world becomes increasingly interconnected, customers crave meaningful connections with their chosen brands. A positive CX leads to lower churn rates; when customers have a pleasant experience with your brand, they’re more likely to stay loyal. Retention becomes your superpower, boosting customer lifetime value and bolstering your bottom line.

Good CX also generates referrals – for example, when a customer shares their positive experience with a support agent after a friend complains about how long they spent on hold with a competitor. Happy customers turn into brand ambassadors, creating a ripple effect of organic growth.

In an era where customer acquisition costs are skyrocketing – one study shows that it has risen by 222 percent in the last eight years – this word-of-mouth marketing can be a lifeline for startups.

The inverse is also true. Research has found that customers are more likely to complain publicly about negative experiences than recommend positive ones, so brands that don’t optimize their CX run the risk of handicapping their growth.

But even if they have acknowledged the importance of CX, business decision-makers may face the challenge of limited resources and expertise. Building an in-house team that focuses on CX is an expensive endeavor, and it still may not end up having the collective years of expertise required to implement strategies correctly.

Forward-thinking brands often partner with specialized customer support providers like PartnerHero as a cost-effective alternative to building an in-house function. These external teams of trained professionals can seamlessly integrate into your startup, handling live chat, moderating user-generated content, managing customer emails and calls, and even taking care of your social media accounts.

By outsourcing CX to experts, you can ensure high customer satisfaction without the heavy burden of recruitment, training, and infrastructure. Indeed, PartnerHero has access to hundreds of professionals across dozens of industries, so you can be sure that they can quickly find the right person for your specific business needs. Its leading employee retention rates also mean partner programs enjoy the stability required for associates to build product expertise.

This is more important now than ever, as customers have come to expect more from their online experiences with brands. One 2022 study found that 88 percent of service reps agreed that customers have higher expectations now than in previous years.

The bar has been lifted, in part, by the boom in AI-powered self-service options. As these bots can deal with more routine queries, those that end up being directed to agents have become more complex. But, with frontline contact center attrition rates reported to be up to 80 percent, companies can find the skills gap leads to dissatisfied customers. By outsourcing their CX team, companies can get the expertise they need to keep up with rising consumer demands.

What’s more, as business requirements change, it is far easier to scale up or down an outsourced team than a captive one . PartnerHero offers standard 30-day rolling contracts, so you can adjust team size as necessary and minimize any financial risks associated with long-term commitments. The services also cost around 50 percent less than building an in-house team from the start, so it’s a more cost-effective solution overall.

There are many CX outsourcing companies out there – the market is expected to grow to US$81.5 billion this year because companies are boosting their investment in CCaaS and other cloud-based CX tools. This is to cater to trends like increasing smartphone users and the big data revolution.

But PartnerHero stands out – it offers a truly end-to-end solution, which includes CX strategy, tool selection and implementation, moderation, and quality assurance. The company, founded in 2014, outsources dedicated customer support teams, as well as those that can take care of AR/AP, onboarding, and back office tasks like data entry and inventory management.

Everyone it employs must meet language skills requirements to ensure they can connect with customers across all channels, and therefore PartnerHero boasts the highest English language proficiency in the business.

Contact PartnerHero today to discuss how it can tailor its services to meet your business’s needs and unlock the full potential of CX.

The post How investing in customer experience is investing in your startup’s growth appeared first on TechHQ.

For too long, external and internal communications solutions were regarded as totally separate entities. Companies had the impression that, by doing so, they were getting greater control over the messaging that reached customers and external stakeholders while air-gapping any confidential information shared internally.

However, a notable shift is under way, as businesses increasingly recognize the value of uniting these previously isolated communication channels. Having them all under one roof can bring significant cost savings to the company by reducing the need for duplicated systems and staff training.

There are other benefits too. As organizations adapt to hybrid teams, where remote work and in-office presence coexist, a centralized platform offers seamless integration of voice, video, and chat, allowing teams to collaborate effortlessly, regardless of their physical location.

They also help businesses meet the soaring expectations customers have for their digital experiences. With a centralized platform, customer queries can be swiftly addressed and interactions tracked across various channels, ensuring a consistent and personalized customer journey.

However, any sort of IT overhaul can often pose headaches for multiple departments in a business. Compatibility issues, data migration challenges, and the potential for downtime during the migration process can all create disruptions in regular operations.

After installation, employees need to be trained to use the new system effectively, and adapting to the new workflow might require a period of adjustment. Teething problems are also inevitable, and further IT assistance may need to be hired to gain extra features that the decision-maker didn’t consider when planning the transition.

Philipp Beck. Source: LinkedIn

As Philipp Beck, CEO of Luware, says: “IT decision-makers often find that only about two or three percent of the company are still using the old PBX, and figure that they can easily be integrated into the UC platform.

“But during the implementation phase they realize that Microsoft Teams doesn’t offer the functionality these users need. That’s when they find themselves in a bind to quickly find a solution so as to keep the UC project on track.”

Bringing the contact center into Microsoft Teams

But there are solutions. Mr Beck elaborates: “Many companies aren’t aware that they can use Microsoft Teams and the broader Microsoft ecosystem they’ve already invested in for their customer service.”

It is possible to augment the current unified communications (UC) platform used for internal communications, like Teams, In this case, the UC provider – Microsoft – delivers the collaboration tools for calling, chat, or video conferencing, while the contact center vendor extends the platform with call management and other contact center functions.

There is also the option of integrating internal communications into the contact center, which can work better for organizations that utilize more than one UC platform. However, in doing so, agents remain working on siloed applications and IT must continue providing support for multiple solutions.

Familiar territory

A huge benefit of consolidating all your company’s communications into a UC like Microsoft Teams is its familiarity. This platform, or similar, has become a staple in most workplaces over the last few years, leading to a widespread understanding of its interface and features. Therefore the learning curve for employees when a contact center is introduced is not as steep as it would be if a new UC platform were brought in.

Additionally, with Teams already set up on company devices, there will be minimal downtime during deployment. Employees won’t need to download anything new, or remember any new log-in credentials, to access the functionality.

“Wherever Teams runs, it runs,” said Mr Beck. “A Microsoft Teams contact center run with whatever home office infrastructure people have. Wherever you can use Teams, you can answer customer calls.”

It’s not just the staff who benefit from a familiar user experience, but also the legal and security teams who must approve any IT infrastructure changes.

Mr Beck said: “We make it simple for the security and legal departments because you [run] the solution on top of something you already use. You don’t have to have big discussions with them about whether Teams is secure because they’ve already had that discussion and deemed it secure.”

Extra control

Having the contact center integrated into the pre-existing UC means that, on top of the standard communications platform controls, it is easier for employees to manage the more advanced settings, which may otherwise be reserved for IT specialists.

The CCaaS solution Luware Nimbus enhances Teams with role-based access. Users with the right responsibilities can use an easy-to-use Workflow Editor that allows them to set up, customize, and instantly implement workflows in Teams, regardless of their technical knowledge.

“This speeds up the process of adoption,” said Mr Beck. “When it comes to adding a new service to the contact center, that’s something they can all build themselves rather than having to have some other tool or go to the IT helpdesk.

Source: Luware

“You will no longer have situations where you forget to open a ticket for IT to close the contact center at 4pm and it doesn’t get done, so customers get stuck with automated responses.

“Supervisors and administrators can actually do it all themselves, which brings speed and agility to customer service.”

Happy employees = happy customers

The increased productivity of the workforce through an integrated UC platform translates well to the customers. Agents can respond to inquiries more promptly and offer seamless assistance across various communication channels, leading to improved customer satisfaction.

As well as less productive, having multiple systems to navigate is often frustrating for employees, so a UC platform can improve their job satisfaction. In Luware Nimbus, users can switch between dealing with customer calls in the front office and working on maintenance or admin tasks in the back office in Teams.

“You can easily transfer to the back office because it’s all on the same telephony infrastructure, so that makes it really easy to get the most value out of the customer interaction,” said Mr Beck.

“If the employee experience is good and employees are happy, they will also serve the customers better, which will result in a better customer experience.”

The post Why you should integrate your contact center with Microsoft Teams appeared first on TechHQ.

From chatbots and virtual assistants that offer instant, personalized assistance to predictive analytics that anticipate customer needs, AI is redefining the very essence of customer interactions.

Automated systems are so intuitive that they can sort out simple queries without anyone having to wait in a tedious call queue. Human agents can now concentrate on customer issues that could only be solved with their skills, with AI-powered tools allowing them to do so more efficiently than ever.

TechHQ spoke to Colin Crowley, the Senior Director of Customer Engagement at contact center systems specialist Freshworks, about some of the challenges facing businesses and their CX improvement challenges.

“On a general basis, a lot of these AI-powered technologies help to resolve one of the age-old battles in the customer support world between efficiency and quality,” he said.

The typical AI chatbot can help to increase a company’s efficiency but automated, smart systems can’t handle every inquiry. However, forgoing them entirely results in human agents dealing with a high volume of menial issues, leading to unnecessarily long wait times.

“Typically, in the past, efficiency and quality were at loggerheads, where you would have to sacrifice one for the other. And, typically, you were sacrificing the former for the latter because it’s easier to quantify and monetize efficiency.”

In a contact center, efficiency is measured, traditionally, with metrics like the number of contacts an agent makes each hour or the average issue-handling time. However, an assessment of quality would involve evaluating a myriad of factors, including the agent’s communication skills, problem-solving abilities, and customer satisfaction.

Mr Crowley said: “I think what AI has done is really change that up entirely, so we now live in a world where you’re capable of increasing quality and efficiency at the same time; it’s no longer a choice between one or the other.”

Quality can now be metricized through AI-powered sentiment analysis, which gives a reading of how a customer is feeling about a conversation, and scoring based on specific criteria or keywords, allowing agents’ performance to be easily monitored at scale.

The best way to strike a balance is to allow chatbots to solely deal with high-volume, straightforward queries, said Mr Crowley.

He added: “That enables customer support teams increasingly to be, I guess you could say, ‘human’ at scale. It empowers them to be more personalized and empathetic and, at the same time, they can handle more contacts simultaneously.”

Companies can also implement A/B testing to achieve that balance, identifying whether a bot or a human agent would work better for ‘grey area’ customer inquiries. For example, early in the sales process, questions from prospective customers are likely to be simple ones that a chatbot could manage, but also the human touch could help boost brand image and be effective towards conversions.

“AI-powered technology can help you look at the qualitative difference in those conversations […] It makes the chatbots able to handle a lot more in a way that doesn’t make you feel like you’re in an endless loop.”

Similarly, an agent-facing bot could flag issues that a customer may have with the service when they reach out with an unrelated query. The agent can then offer to solve this issue too.

AI tools can further benefit human support agents with real-time sentiment analysis. This is particularly beneficial when they must quickly move between multiple conversations requiring different sensitivity and empathy levels.

Mr Crowley said: “Agent-facing bots can be there to help correct your tonality when you’re communicating back and forth with customers to make sure that, based on the mood and the sentiment of the customer, you’re communicating in such a way that is most acclimated to what the customer needs to hear at that particular time.”

For managers, more advanced, AI-powered data analytics can give them a unified view of agent performance, helping to identify areas of improvement. It is common for customer support organizations to sit on top of swathes of unused data, largely because they do not know how to gather it or turn it into actionable insights.

“That’s a huge area where AI can help because it can analyze all of this […] data coming in from customer contacts on the fly and help to funnel that back into the operations, product, or web team to improve your service or product,” said Mr Crowley.

The technology can also help agents offer benefits to customers while remaining mindful of company finances.

Mr Crowley said: “It’s hard to know what’s the best discount or amount of credits to give someone, and when you’re giving too much or too little.

“Based on certain criteria of the customer, which could be their loyalty tier, prior contact history, or how many orders they’ve had previously, that agent-facing bot could recommend the perfect accommodation that satisfies the customer and, at the same time, is conscientious about the company’s pocketbook.”

While there are many benefits to applying AI solutions, doing so effectively is challenging. Often the data necessary for them to work comes from disparate company systems, and it is time-consuming to collate it, especially in real-time and at scale.

The solutions can also involve a significant upfront financial investment without an easily measurable ROI, which has traditionally held companies back. However, Mr Crowley says that this is likely to decrease in the near future.

“Like with ChatGPT, we are seeing widely accessible technology that’s democratizing access to AI,” he said. “At Freshworks, we’re trying to build AI into the product from the get-go. This means you don’t have to balance three separate vendors for this and that AI technology and deal with the data siloing that takes place and extra price tags.”

Advancements in AI solutions are coming thick and fast, and customers now have hyper-personalized experiences in their dealings with all businesses. Their expectations for support are constantly being raised, therefore.

One way Mr Crowley said meeting increased demands could be achieved is by moving some agents, who have a reduced workload thanks to lower-level issues being taken over by chatbots, into an “innovation team.”“Agents can move into more specialized roles where they help to be pioneers in company technology by just keeping up with that technology curve and helping to pilot programs,” he said.

Other roles could be created for agents which involve performing quality assurance on the chatbots and managing their conversational flow. “That’s a great way to utilize agents who are really skilled,” said Mr Crowley.

“The technology can actually create more career opportunities for agents within a customer support organization.”

The role of the support agent itself will also evolve with the integration of AI. Mr Crowley said: “The average customer support agent is going to be handling specialty tasks more and more because most of the lower-level issues are going to be taken care of.

“That entirely changes the customer support role from being […] this lower-level role, where you’re just a reactive receptacle of people’s complaints, to a role for people who are more skilled, more specialized, and paid better.“You could say that it actually improves the agent experience too, because typically agents don’t like handling very mundane issues because it’s not very satisfying.”

However, it is necessary to pair the launch of AI tools with a clear plan about how the support agent role will change and remain a part of the company structure.

Any investment in customer-facing AI technologies should also be matched by investment into projects which support agents. After all, by having a bot at their fingertips which helps them manage four customer interactions simultaneously, they will reap benefits from their faster response time in the form of higher satisfaction scores.

“That’s a great way to condition customer support agents to see AI technology as something that enhances their experience and empowers them to do better without being burnt out, rather than seeing AI as something that takes their jobs away,” said Mr Crowley.

He added that integrating AI technologies into customer support organizations will influence their strategies more broadly. The success of chatbots could see more of a focus on conversational engagement through channels like Facebook Messenger and Direct Messages on Twitter.

Mr Crowley said: “These are all channels that are relatively real-time but with an asynchronous back and forth and are more immediately attached to everyone’s social life. AI is making conversational engagement disproportionately more efficient and higher quality than other contact channels, and that will push more companies to go towards those channels in higher degrees.”

They will also level the playing field between smaller and larger companies, as readily available AI solutions mean they can compete on efficiency in a way that was not previously possible.

He said: “That’s going to force, I think, a lot of these bigger companies to have better customer service. The smaller companies would traditionally tend to have better customer service because they are spending more on that as a differentiator. So AI will help increase competition on the customer service side with the bigger companies.”

The post The synergy of AI and human agents: A new era in Customer Support appeared first on TechHQ.

La tecnología de consumo está cada vez más avanzada, en parte gracias a los gigantescos avances de la inteligencia artificial (IA). Si bien los avances en esta tecnología llevan años gestándose, en la actualidad son muchas las personas que están tomando conciencia de su poder, sobre todo desde el lanzamiento de ChatGPT y otras IA generativas.

A medida que interactuamos con dispositivos y software más sofisticados, crece la expectativa de los clientes en relación con sus experiencias digitales con las marcas. Y ello incluye las interacciones con los operadores de atención al cliente.

Pero satisfacer estas expectativas cada vez más exigentes no siempre es algo tan sencillo.

Soluciones de IA Fuente: Net2Phone

Los servicios digitales de los centros de contacto se actualizan constantemente para ayudar a las empresas a adaptarse a las crecientes exigencias de sus clientes. Sin embargo, si no se realiza con un proveedor adecuado y de forma correcta, intentar integrar todas las funciones y los canales de comunicación puede dar lugar a un sistema desarticulado, que repercute en la eficacia de las interacciones y en la experiencia general del cliente (CX).

Si se ofrecen, sin una estrategia y plataforma adecuada,  distintos canales para chats, correos electrónicos, redes sociales y llamadas de voz, los clientes corren el riesgo de verse expuestos a distintos métodos y niveles de contexto por parte de los operadores. Es posible también que sean redireccionados de un canal a otro, con la consiguiente pérdida del historial de interacciones durante el proceso. Los clientes pueden tener que repetir sus datos y frustrarse, llevándose una experiencia negativa.

Soluciones de centros de contacto en la nube para empresas, Fuente: Net2Phone

Un número excesivo de canales también dificulta que los operadores con los que hablan les ofrezcan una experiencia personalizada. Esto debería ser una prioridad, ya que el 71 % de los consumidores esperan interacciones individualizadas por parte de las empresas. Tener que navegar por múltiples plataformas para hilvanar el recorrido del cliente dificultará la capacidad del operador para ofrecer una asistencia eficiente y personalizada, lo que reducirá las tasas de conversión.

El disponer de todos estos canales y funcionalidades puede plantear una serie de problemas diferentes a la gerencia. Cada flujo de trabajo complementario —que no deja de perfeccionarse gracias a las actualizaciones de software— se traduce en un mayor volumen de datos que hay que analizar al momento de tomar decisiones fundamentadas. Esta sobrecarga de datos también plantea retos a la hora de almacenar, procesar y extraer información procesable si no se dispone de estrategias y herramientas integrales.

¿Es la IA la respuesta?

Para atender las crecientes expectativas de los clientes de recibir experiencias personalizadas, así como la cantidad cada vez mayor de datos que recopilan los servicios de los centros de contacto, los proveedores deben aprovechar el poder de la IA.

Una forma popular de hacerlo es incorporar incialmente un chatbot de IA de texto generativo al sitio web, pero esta puede resultar una estrategia arriesgada. Si no se selecciona el proveedor La tecnología sigue expuesta a imprecisiones y sesgoslo que puede perjudicar a la marca responsable de implementarla.

En lugar de confiar solo a un chatbot la atención de los clientes, TechHQ busca las formas más sofisticadas en que las empresas pueden utilizar la IA para mejorar la experiencia de sus clientes y empleados y, en consecuencia, hacer crecer su negocio.

• Los resúmenes de llamadas mejoran la eficacia de los operadores

En lugar de que el operador tenga que tomar notas manualmente durante o después de una llamada, la IA puede autogenerar un resumen en cuanto el cliente finaliza la conversación y cuelga el teléfono. Convierte los datos recogidos durante la llamada en puntos de acción y pasos a seguir, que pueden utilizarse para redactar correos electrónicos de seguimiento. Esto no solo permitirá a los operadores ser más eficientes, sino que también podrán ofrecer una atención al cliente personalizada con más facilidad. Esto se debe a que los clientes únicamente recibirán la información que precisen y mantendrán una conversación fluida a través de todos los canales.

• El análisis detallado de las llamadas mejora la experiencia del cliente

Los nuevos algoritmos pueden registrar métricas que una persona no podría, como el número de palabras que se hablan por minuto, los momentos en los que los clientes y los operadores se interrumpen entre sí y la proporción entre hablar y escuchar en una conversación. Analizando estos datos, la IA puede identificar tendencias sutiles que contribuyen al éxito de los operadores. Esta valiosa información puede utilizarse para optimizar la capacitación, mejorar los procesos de gestión de llamadas y, en última instancia, mejorar la CX en general.

• Sugerencias para reducir la brecha de habilidades

Según un informe de Cresta Insights, la tasa de rotación de empleados en los centros de atención telefónica enfocados al servicio de asistencia es aproximadamente 1,3 veces superior a la media estadounidense. Esta elevada tasa de rotación provoca un déficit de habilidades, ya que el nuevo personal necesita tener la capacitación o la experiencia adecuada para atender las complejas consultas de los clientes. Sin embargo, la integración de la IA en su centro de contacto puede ofrecer una solución.

Existen algoritmos que pueden generar automáticamente sugerencias para la mejora a partir de un análisis exhaustivo de las llamadas, capacitando al operador sin necesidad de una intervención constante de los gerentes. De este modo, el personal recién contratado puede mejorar rápidamente, cerrando la brecha de habilidades y reduciendo el índice de deserción a largo plazo.

• El análisis del estado emocional permite una resolución rápida de los problemas

El análisis del estado emocional identifica con precisión el tono de voz y el contexto, ofreciendo información crucial para las interacciones con los clientes. Permite a los operadores adaptar su enfoque para que puedan abordar las inquietudes con mayor rapidez, al tiempo que permite a los gerentes identificar áreas de mejora en el servicio al cliente. Por otra parte, el análisis del estado emocional sirve como herramienta para que los gestores y los operadores prioricen las interacciones de alta prioridad o de riesgo, lo que les permitirá asignar los recursos de forma eficaz y garantizar una resolución proactiva de los problemas.

• Una transcripción precisa acelera la evaluación de las llamadas

La tecnología aplicada a la IA puede permitir una transcripción y una grabación más precisas de las llamadas. Esto facilita el proceso de revisión posterior a la llamada, lo que propicia la rápida identificación de oportunidades de mejora para los operadores. Los supervisores también se benefician de ello, ya que pueden llegar a comprender mejor las llamadas y los incidentes que tienen lugar en la empresa sin necesidad de escuchar cada conversación. Esta mejora de la eficacia en la revisión y el análisis de las llamadas supone un ahorro de tiempo, a la vez que ofrece a los supervisores la posibilidad de transmitir comentarios específicos a los operadores. Su rendimiento mejorará en última instancia, al igual que la calidad general de las interacciones con los clientes.

Para mantenerse al día con las crecientes demandas digitales de los clientes, este es el momento ideal para incorporar la IA a su arsenal de herramientas de asistencia. Obtenga más información sobre cómo net2phone puede aprovechar las soluciones de voz sobre protocolo de Internet (VoIP) gestionadas por la IA.

The post El agente secreto de la IA: cómo la automatización puede resolver los problemas en su centro de contacto appeared first on TechHQ.

Consumer technology is growing increasingly advanced, partially thanks to the huge leaps forward made in artificial intelligence (AI). While developments in this technology have been brewing under the surface for years, many are now becoming more aware of its power, particularly since the recent release of ChatGPT and other generative AI.

As we interact with more sophisticated devices and software, it raises the bar for what customers come to expect from their digital experiences with brands. That includes interactions with support agents.

But meeting these heightened expectations is not always straightforward.

Digital contact center services are constantly being updated to help businesses keep up with their customers’ rising standards. However, trying to integrate all the latest must-have features and communication channels can lead to a disjointed system, which impacts the effectiveness of interactions and overall customer experience (CX).

Cloud Contact Centre Solutions for Businesses, Source: Net2Phone

If you offer different channels for chats, emails, social media, and voice calls, customers are at risk of being exposed to varying approaches and levels of context from agents. They can also be deflected from one channel to another, losing the interaction history in the process. Customers may have to repeat their details and get frustrated, leaving them with a negative experience.

An excessive number of channels also makes it difficult for the agent they are speaking with to provide a personalized experience. This should be a priority, as 71 percent of consumers expect tailored interactions from companies. Having to navigate multiple platforms to piece together the customer’s journey will hinder the agent’s ability to deliver efficient and customized support, lowering their conversion rates.

Having all these channels and features can pose a different set of issues for managers. Each additional workflow – which is continuously becoming more advanced through software updates – results in more, and larger, pools of data to sift through when needing to make informed decisions. This data overload also poses challenges in storage, processing, and extracting actionable intelligence without comprehensive strategies and tools in place.

Cloud Contact Centre Solutions for Businesses, Source: Net2Phone

Is AI the Answer?

To cater to customers’ heightened expectations for personalized experiences, as well as the increasing amount of data that contact center services collect, providers must harness the power of AI.

A popular way of doing so is to hastily add a generative AI chatbot to the website, but this is a risky strategy. The technology is still prone to inaccuracies and bias, which can reflect poorly on the brand responsible for implementing it.

So, rather than letting a chatbot loose with customers, TechHQ looks at more sophisticated ways companies can utilize AI to improve their customer and employee experience and grow their business as a result.

• Call summaries improve agent efficiency

Rather than the agent manually having to take notes during or after a call, AI can autogenerate a call summary as soon as the customer puts the phone down. It turns data collected during the call into action items and next steps, which can be used to compose follow-up emails. Not only does this allow agents to be more efficient, but they can also more easily provide a personalized CX. This is because customers will only receive the necessary information, and will maintain a seamless conversation across channels.

• Deep call analytics enhance customer experience

New algorithms can take note of metrics that a person could not, such as words spoken per minute, instances of callers and agents talking over each other, and talking-to-listening ratio. By analyzing this data, an AI can identify subtle trends that contribute to agent success. This valuable insight can be used to optimize training, improve call-handling processes, and ultimately enhance the overall CX.

• Suggestions for improvement close the skills gap

According to a report from Cresta Insights, the employee attrition rate at customer call centers that focus on support is about 1.3 times higher than the US average. This high turnover rate leads to a skills gap, as the new staff need to have the appropriate training or experience to deal with complex customer inquiries. However, integrating AI into your contact center can offer a solution.

Algorithms can automatically generate suggestions for improvement based on deep call analysis, coaching the agent without the need for constant managerial input. The newer staff can then improve quickly, closing the skills gap and reducing the attrition rate in the long run.

• Sentiment analysis allows for fast issue resolution

Sentiment analysis accurately identifies voice tone and context, providing crucial insights into customer interactions. It allows agents to adapt their approach so they can address concerns more promptly, while also enabling managers to identify areas for improvement in customer service. Moreover, sentiment analysis helps managers and agents prioritize high-priority or at-risk interactions, allowing them to allocate resources effectively and ensure proactive issue resolution.

• Accurate transcription speeds up call reviews

AI technology can allow for more accurate transcription and call recording. This makes for an easier post-call reviewing process, leading to the swift identification of opportunities for agent improvement. Supervisors benefit from this too, as they can gain a deeper understanding of calls and incidents taking place within the business without needing to listen to every conversation. This enhanced efficiency in reviewing and analyzing calls saves time while empowering supervisors to provide targeted feedback to agents. Their performance will ultimately be improved, as will the overall quality of customer interactions.

To keep up with the increasing digital demands of customers, there has never been a more important time to add AI into your support arsenal. Learn more about how net2phone can leverage AI-driven Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) solutions.

The post The Secret AI-gent: How automation can solve your contact center problems appeared first on TechHQ.

When trying to turn prospects into lifetime customers, online companies often forget the power of a personal touch. In this era when consumers are constantly bombarded with digital ads and emails, making a truly personal connection requires companies to go above and beyond spammy calls and generic texts. While most brands have moved to email platforms that allow personalization, they are still relying on sales systems that either treat all customers the same way or rely on the sales agent to spend the time to personalise outreach. How can your sales team reach out at exactly the right time with exactly the right message, and make millions of customers feel like one in a million?

Getting this done in the world of high-velocity outbound phone and SMS sales requires technology that leverages every interaction customers have with your brand to trigger and optimize meaningful real-time conversations. The goal is to deliver tailored calls and SMS conversations that meet customers where they are, ultimately increasing conversion rates and driving incremental sales. 

Let’s dissect what that looks like — and why it’s been so hard to accomplish.

Source: Regal.io

Why do companies struggle to personalize their B2C phone and SMS sales outreach?

The problem typically lies with the technology, not the people. Sales teams conducting phone outreach often operate within strict time constraints and face pressure to meet quotas, leaving little room for customized interactions. And, they are typically stuck in an outdated “dialing for dollars” mode, where the strategy is simply to “call more” or “call faster.” While this approach sounds good in theory, in reality, it makes efficiency the main goal and relegates personalization to an after-thought. 

As a result, brands are missing important opportunities to build a high-converting sales flow and ultimately, drive increased revenue. Indeed, a study by Mckinsey found that fast-growing companies drive 40 percent more of their revenue from personalization than their slower-growing counterparts.

For B2C sales outreach, the challenge often starts even before the customer has picked up the phone — if an unrecognized number appears on the screen, the recipient is highly likely to  disregard it. According to a study from Baylor University, 72 percent of sales calls aren’t answered.

But this isn’t the only aspect that gets in the way of representatives being able to tailor — and automate — their interactions with potential customers. To achieve this, reps need access to a wealth of accurate and comprehensive customer data, including preferences, demographics, purchase history, and previous interactions. Collecting and analyzing this data properly can be arduous, particularly without a robust data management system to take on the lion’s share of the workload. But forgoing these potential customer insights results in poor customer experience and diminished conversion rates. 

Accessing customer data in the first place can also be a struggle due to privacy and data challenges. Not only do brands need customer permission for SMS and calls, they also face internal steps such as unifying their website, app, email, CRM, and interaction data to get a holisitc view of the customer. This task load can deter managers from even trying to personalise any outreach.

Source: Regal.io

How can an outbound phone sales solution make personalization easier?

Overcoming the barriers to personalization is not impossible — in fact, it can start with swapping out a typical B2C call center platform with a more robust and targeted solution. For example, the outbound phone and SMS sales solution Regal.io offers a suite of products that drive personalized conversations and enable brands to hit their growth goals faster. Regal’s solution includes Branded Caller ID, available to all 400 million cell phones in the US. With Branded Caller ID, a company’s name, location, and logo will appear on the call recipient’s screen instead of an unknown number fraught with suspicion.  

Branded Caller ID helps to create a professional look and increases trust and credibility, as the recipient knows the incoming call is genuine. Customers are 80 percent more likely to pick up the phone if they know who is calling, so adding a small personal touch like this can work wonders for pickup and conversion rates.

Regal’s platform also unifies rich customer data — such as every email a prospect opens or clicks, every article they view on a brand’s help center or content pages, and every action they take in the account-creation process — so managers can build specific journeys to ensure that each customer interaction is exactly right. Reaching customers and prospects at the right time in the customer journey is also essential to growing conversion rates. With Regal, users can orchestrate their outreach, so it triggers at key revenue-generating moments. This lets sales teams catch their prospects at just the right time, increasing their chances of driving both conversions and incremental revenue.

A unified agent desktop, like that from Regal, shows the CRM data, time-series product data, and contact center data for each customer in a single view. These insights can give the rep a rich context for their interactions, allowing them to deliver a tailor-made message while making the customer feel valued.

Your outbound phone sales solution should enable your business to prioritize providing customer experiences with a human touch. This approach has driven effective metrics for Regal customers such as 25% revenue growth, 20x ROI, and 4x team productivity. And, dog food delivery service The Farmer’s Dog saw a 58 percent lift in conversion rates after implementing Regal. To learn more about how Regal can help your business grow, request a demo of its platform here. 

The post Mastering personalization: Best practices for effective high-velocity sales outreach with Regal.io appeared first on TechHQ.