How to Serve Your Customers Intelligently

Chances are you, like so many others, are asking yourself how to retain your customers while also building brand loyalty and growing your bottom line. The answer? Outstanding customer service. Adding cloud-based, cutting-edge capabilities in the contact center has emerged as a powerful tool for transforming customer service. You can serve your customers more intelligently through digital channels, AI-powered prediction, flexibility of scale, and more. According to IDC, 64% of global enterprises plan to invest in or will begin to evaluate cloud-based contact center technologies in the next 12 to 24 months. Read on to find out what is driving demand for cloud in the contact center.

Cloud Benefits You Can Realize Right Away

Cloud contact center capabilities provide unique operational benefits:

• Cloud capabilities facilitate an omnichannel environment, allowing you to provide a seamless customer experience across all channels. Beyond traditional voice, you can add digital channels such as chat, email, and social media to allow customers to interact with you how they prefer, creating a more personalized brand experience.
• Improve agent productivity through built-in workforce optimization features. Leverage these capabilities and reap the benefits of voice recording, screen recording, automated quality management, compliance triggers, forecasting and scheduling, and more.
• Because there is little to no physical infrastructure involved in a cloud deployment, a cloud contact center solution gives you the flexibility to scale your operations as needed. Add or remove agents and adjust your capacity based on demand, ensuring you have the right-sized workforce to meet your customers’ needs.
• Not ready to move fully to the cloud? Add cloud capabilities to your existing infrastructure as part of your digital transformation journey, instead of starting from scratch. Enjoy the benefits of an omnichannel environment and workforce optimization right away.

AI: The Key to Intelligent Customer Service

Artificial intelligence is a hot topic this year, and organizations are prioritizing ways to harness it in their own technological environments. Research from IDC states that 40% of global organizations indicated that integrating AI and machine learning is a must-have for enterprise-level cloud contact center deployments. In the context of a contact center, AI can help deepen customer knowledge and relationships. For example, detecting the sentiment of a customer's voice, alerting agents to a customer who may need extra attention or an empathetic ear; or using predictive analytics to access real-time key performance indicators, customer interactions, and agent performance metrics.

By providing intelligent customer service, businesses can build customer loyalty, increase customer satisfaction, and improve their brand reputation. And businesses can equip agents with the tools and skills to reduce wait times, improve their response times, and work more efficiently, leading to a better customer experience. It’s a cycle that strengthens the relationship, and that can become a competitive advantage.

Cloud-based capabilities in the contact center serve as powerful tools for meeting the needs of your customers. By leveraging AI, adding digital channels, and using cloud-based solutions, businesses can improve agent productivity and provide a more personalized customer experience. Learn more about the many benefits of intelligent cloud-based capabilities for the contact center through this infographic from IDC sponsored by Avaya.