In recent years, voice assistants for call centers have become increasingly popular, making them essential. Genuine virtual agents can significantly alleviate the workload of human agents, handling around 40% of customers' queries. This not only frees up human agents to focus on more complex tasks but also enhances the overall efficiency of the call center operations.
Once integrated into a call center, voice assistants and agents can form a team that offers an optimal customer experience that regulates the flow of incoming calls during peak times. However, it's important to note that implementing voice assistants may require initial investment and training. Let's look at which tasks could be done by a voice assistant and how you can integrate one into your call center.
What is a voice assistant?
A voice assistant, also known as a callbot or voicebot, is a computer program that understands and interprets human voices. It can also understand and respond to queries with its Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) system and voice recognition.
Voice assistants can also complete tasks like searching for things online, creating reminders, and scheduling meetings. They're often integrated into devices like smartphones and smart speakers. The most common examples include Apple's Siri, Google Assistant, and Amazon Alexa.
What are the advantages of voice assistants in a call center?
In France, 72% of customers still use the phone to contact brands (Salesforce, 2022 [in French]). Call centers are an issue for customer relationships, which is hardly surprising. However, they often need help with incoming calls and cannot answer every query.
A voice assistant, like a callbot or voicebot, can be essential in keeping your customers satisfied. Here are the many advantages of implementing voice assistants in your call center:
- Automating repetitive tasks: human agents can focus on more complex tasks.
- Round-the-clock availability: They are always on standby, ready to assist customers in call centers at any time of the day. This ensures that your customers never have to wait for assistance, enhancing their satisfaction and loyalty.
- Reduced customer wait times: Voice assistants instantly answer customers and increase customer satisfaction with quicker responses.
- Consistent answers: Voice assistants can be programmed to give standardized and coherent answers, avoiding inconsistencies. This improves customer experience.
- Analyzing data: Voice assistants can record and analyze interactions to extract valuable analytical data to improve a company's customer service.
- Reduced costs: By automating specific tasks, call centers can reduce operational costs, notably by hiring fewer human agents with voice assistants capable of handling simple and repetitive tasks.
- Improved customer satisfaction: Voice assistants can improve customer satisfaction by offering fast and precise responses. Customers appreciate being able to obtain information over the phone quickly.
What tasks can a voice assistant do?
Did you know that 89% of consumers move to competitors following an unsatisfactory customer experience (Harris Interactive via Fusion BPO Service)? This highlights the importance of providing a satisfactory customer experience. Similarly, 81% say that significant wait times are a source of frustration (The Harry Poll via Fonolo). This underscores the need for efficient call center operations.
Having a reactive and efficient call center is a critical issue for companies to overcome. There's nothing better than integrating voicebots and callbots into your call center to take some of the load from your human agents.
Many tasks can be done by a voice assistant (like a voicebot) without human intervention. Some of the processes that can be delegated to a bot include:
- Online search: Voice assistants can search for answers online to respond to queries, provide information on various subjects, or provide definitions.
- Collect data from calls like performance indicators: The voice assistant can use this information to improve service.
- Read messages and emails: They can read messages like texts, emails, and other notifications aloud.
- Reminders and appointments: Voice assistants can create, modify, and read reminders, as well as manage events and scheduling within a calendar. 100% of scheduling can be delegated to your virtual voice assistant. Remember that 51% of incoming calls are to arrange appointments [in French], according to BVA's 2022 Observatoire des Services Client. You could, therefore, delegate half of your incoming calls to a voice assistant.
- E-commerce orders: Users can make orders online, add items to their basket, and complete orders using a voice assistant.
How can you set up a callbot in your call center?
Now that you're convinced of the value of integrating a voice assistant in your call center, you're probably wondering how to set one up. To deploy a callbot in your call center, follow these steps: evaluate your needs and objectives, choose the right technology and provider, personalize and integrate AI, test and deploy, and finally, monitor and continue to improve.
Evaluate needs and objectives
Before implementing a voice assistant, you must clearly define your company's objectives and requirements. The callbot should meet your requirements and save you time and money. Work out your customer's most common queries and the primary use cases you'd want to delegate to a callbot.
Choose the right technology and provider
Choosing the right callbot technology is essential to rolling out a voicebot in your call center. There are plenty of different voice assistant providers. Of all the various solutions, you could choose, for example, our no-code AI callbot solution platform. 'Nocode' means that you don't need coding skills to customize and use the platform, making it accessible and easy to implement.
Personalizing and integrating AI
Now, it's time to personalize your usage scenarios with various modules, such as FAQ management, customer service, HR, marketing, lead management, and more.
Testing and deployment
The testing phase is essential for getting your intelligent virtual agent operational and ready to satisfy your customers from the first call. Remember this step when integrating your voice assistant into your call center. Equally important is to train your human agents on the virtual agents to ensure they understand how to work well together and maximize the benefits of the voice assistant.
Monitoring and continued improvement
Use performance indicators and KPIs such as average response time, customer satisfaction ratings, and successful interactions to evaluate your callbot's performance and results. Your voice assistant can collect this information itself, which is useful for continuous improvement.