Cloud telephony and AI improve contact center workflows Contact centers deal with large numbers of customer interactions across multiple channels. Due to the multi-faceted nature of contact centers, streamlining workflows is essential for providing a fast, reliable and well-organized service. Cloud telephony and AI are becoming popular contact center tools to enable and improve existing workflows. Throughout this article, we’re going to explore these tools in more detail and look at their roles in the transition toward remote and hybrid working, as well as the various benefits they bring. Of course, cloud technology, which essentially means you are connecting to a remote server rather than in-house hardware, is everywhere. According to Gartner, global end-user spending on cloud solutions is expected to hit almost $600 billion in 2023. Cloud telephony, therefore, is communicating with a telephone via the cloud. In other words, you are relying on an internet connection to make and receive phone calls. Cloud telephony will typically require a third-party to host the service. AI (artificial intelligence), defined for our purposes, is machine technology that can mimic human intelligence. Part of this often is collecting and analyzing large amounts of data. AI then uses its “intelligence” to unpack that data and interpret it. An example of AI in the contact center is a chatbot. A chatbot will collect a customer query, analyze it and provide a human-like response that it deems appropriate. When we talk about mixing cloud telephony with AI, we are not necessarily talking about replacing a human agent with a machine. Rather, they are tools that a human agent uses to resolve problems efficiently. Moreover, businesses use the data AI gathers to optimize their services, while the cloud element facilitates a transition toward remote contact centers. These factors combined help to boost call center productivity. Workplace Shift Even before the pandemic brought remote and hybrid work to the mainstream, flexible work arrangements were becoming increasingly popular among contact center teams. A recent study found that in 2021, 64 percent of agents were working remotely and that contact center leaders foresaw this as a permanent change. In turn, AI and cloud telephony aren’t just tools, they’re also changing the way contact centers are operating by enabling this transition. This is because, whether you are conference calling from Canada via dialpad or sitting at home on your desktop, cloud telephony makes communication easy. The beauty of the cloud is that employees can connect to it from anywhere. With cloud telephony, a call center agent does not need to be sitting in a specific office, connected to a telephony line. It is all done through the internet. Working Smarter By Grace Lau CX & EX 22 REMOTE WORK SOLUTIONS rwsmagazine.com
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