58 1. Assist agents with actionable intelligence and contextual information. Effective agent assist solutions use AI to surface highly relevant, contextual information based on specific data about customers, their past interactions, their issue and the current conversation. This allows agents to focus on listening to the customer rather than searching for information, and deliver helpful, personalised responses. The most effective solutions integrate directly with existing systems, workflows and contact centre platforms, routing customers to the best available agent and arming them with all the information they need to humanise the interaction. This leads to a stronger human connection between the brand, its employees and its customers. 2. Deliver empathy at scale. Agents must fulfil four requirements to deliver genuinely empathetic customer interactions at scale. First, they need to be able to understand what customers want to achieve, what they value and how they feel about the experience they are receiving. Second, they should be able to devote ample time to analyse and act on this knowledge. Third, the agent must be free to shape the conversation based on that understanding, even if this means veering away from a script or policy. Finally, they have to be able to deliver empathy efficiently. AI-driven chatbots capture vital contextual information from conversations and absorb simple enquiries, helping agents to recognise the customer’s challenge and use that understanding to improve the conversation. Meanwhile, both AI-powered agent assist tools and quality management solutions enable agents to adapt to specific customer needs without worrying about overlooking key processes, sharing inaccurate information or violating compliance protocol. In addition, AI analytics tools capture and surface actionable insights about each customer, enabling brands and agents to deliver empathy in a more immediate, efficient manner. 3. Unlock comprehensive real-time intelligence. Customer experiences are inherently unpredictable. For example, customers might react in an unexpectedly heated way, while agents may face issues such as intense surges in call volumes, sudden technical support issues, unforeseen questions, and more. To deliver HUMAN experiences, businesses must be able to anticipate – or at least recognise – and adapt to this real-time variance. Agents must be able to shift the tone of a conversation to keep customers happy, supervisors should be able to determine when an agent is overworked or unprepared, and leaders need to know when and where to reallocate their staff. Conversational AI analytics solutions can uncover and surface this real-time intelligence, ensuring brands and employees make fast, wellinformed decisions. 4. Emphasise employee happiness. Research from CCW Digital found that 95 per cent of consumers are more likely to support a brand after interacting with a friendly agent. The statistic offers an important reminder: the best agents are not simply knowledgeable, they are also warm, happy and engaging. VIEWPOINT “Every customer interaction represents an opportunity to learn and improve”
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