Transforming the Customer Experience with AI and Voice Recognition

By Gary Williams, Director of Sales and Consultancy, UK and Ireland, Spitch

Gary Williams, Director of Sales and Consultancy, UK and Ireland, Spitch

In an era of challenging market conditions and increasingly demanding consumers, focusing on customer experience is key for businesses looking to survive and thrive. Organisations across all industries need to harness new technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) and voice recognition to transform the way they communicate with their customers and to remain competitive.

When consumers ring businesses, it is more often than not because they have an urgent matter to resolve, particularly when they call their bank, for example. However, people are often faced with lengthy hold times, exasperating hold music and a frustrating series of questions before they are even able to speak to a call centre agent. This only increases the customer’s sense of frustration.

These frustrations could also lead to issues being magnified more than needed. For example, Sainsbury’s Bank hit the headlines last summer when its customers faced hold times of several hours when they called to discuss why there had been a delay to their credit card statements being sent out.

This led to consumers venting their anger on social media and publications like MoneySavingExpert covering the story. If these phone calls were dealt with swiftly and effectively, the bank would have been able to reassure their customers in a timely manner, and the problem would not have been amplified as much.

Artificial Intelligence and natural language Machine Learning (ML) are on the verge of transforming the fabric of voice-driven customer experience through pioneering speech recognition technology

But through the use of technology, businesses can make such issues a thing of the past. Artificial Intelligence and natural language Machine Learning (ML) are on the verge of transforming the fabric of voice-driven customer experience through pioneering speech recognition technology.

Voice-driven customer service can complement staff and improve customer satisfaction. We’re now at a stage where the technology can understand speaking habits, conversational linguistics, dialects, idiosyncrasies, slang, foreign nationals’ accents, intonation, emphasis, intention and enunciation. It can even understand the sentiment and recognises the intent.

This means that the technology can be deployed in a number of ways to ensure that customer calls are dealt with quickly and effectively. For example, if a customer is clearly angry or a more human touch is needed, the tech solution can escalate the issue in real-time so that a human call centre agent can step in and take charge. By deploying such technology, the customer experience can be improved, and staff members can be freed up to deal with the more serious or complex issues.

Embracing AI and cutting-edge voice technologies can enable businesses to automate parts of the customer care process, leading to increased efficiencies and ultimately improving the customer experience. New technologies mean that businesses streamline the way they identify, understand, and service their customers. Automation and AI in customer care does not mean that call agents are superfluous, but it frees them up to deal with the more complex queries or frustrated customers while more straightforward requests can be managed by new digital assistants. These solutions used in conjunction with voice technology have the power to transform both the call agent and customer experience as well as save your business time and money. Companies that don’t take advantage of new technologies to improve customer experience risk getting left behind.