Pairing Call Center Agents with Virtual Buddies

In the contact center, agent training is at the core of employee engagement.  Conventional wisdom says that, the more thoroughly an agent is trained, coached, guided and valued, the more likely he or she is to remain engaged with the job and to stick around to make a success of it.  To this end, many believe that pairing new agents paired with veteran agents will help newbies learn the ropes and gain from the experience of the more tenured contact center employees.  In a busy contact center, however, that’s not always possible.

So what if the “veteran agent” isn’t human at all, but an artificial intelligence-based virtual agent?  Virtual Employee Assistants (VEA) – or digital buddies – have been tapped as an effective solution to help contact centers both support and motivate their agents, according to Andrew Mort writing for Customer Think.  Think of familiar AIs, such as Alexa for Business.

“To reduce costs and alleviate pressure on agents, companies are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence (AI)-powered solutions to automate activity in their contact centers and to empower their agents,” wrote Mort.  “[AI-based] decision support tools help agents make faster, smarter decisions based on problem diagnoses, previous successful actions and other relevant contextual information.”

In a study published by Gartner (News - Alert) entitled, “How CEC Agents Could Benefit From Having a Digital Buddy,” it was estimated that by 2021, 25 percent of digital workers will use a VEA on a daily basis, up from less than two percent in 2019.

The goal of these AI-based solutions is to act as a first point of contact when it comes to executing simple and even relatively complex processes, offering decision support and freeing up agents to focus on higher-value tasks, Mort suggests.  AI systems can often uncover simpler solutions that humans might overthink, which can lead to dissatisfaction in the customer relationship.  For example, waiting on hold for long minutes, or even requiring a callback, for a solution that turned out to be short and easy.  For more complex tasks, the AI can often find the best past to resolution, eliminating human trial-and-error along the way.


Edited by Erik Linask

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