Driving real value with AI

This article was first published on CommsBusiness on 28 October 2024.

Jason Roos, CEO of Cirrus, outlines how resellers can integrate AI into their contact centre projects.

Integrating AI into contact centre projects is no longer optional for resellers — it’s essential for staying competitive and meeting customers’ high expectations.

However, the journey to AI adoption is fraught with challenges, from technical integration issues to cost concerns and skill gaps. Resellers must overcome those obstacles with practical strategies to incorporate AI into their solutions successfully.

Growing need for AI

AI’s ability to automate routine tasks, provide real-time insights and improve customer interactions is unstoppable. Customers today expect fast, personalised service, and AI is here to deliver just that. The pressure to adopt AI intensifies for resellers as competitors implement these technologies to get ahead.

The challenge is clear: how to stay ahead in a market that increasingly depends on AI-driven solutions. It’s not just about selling AI as a product; it’s about helping your clients implement it in a way that drives real value. The ability to offer practical, phased AI solutions can differentiate you in a competitive marketplace.

Addressing common challenges

Whether you’re a reseller or a contact centre manager, the path to AI adoption involves overcoming complex technical hurdles, addressing skill gaps and ensuring cost-effective implementation.

Just the thought of integrating AI with existing systems can be daunting. Many contact centres operate on legacy systems that don’t easily interface with modern AI solutions. This isn’t just a technical challenge—it’s a potential disruption to daily operations. The key is to find solutions that complement existing infrastructure rather than requiring a complete overhaul.

Even with the right technology, having the expertise to implement and manage AI solutions is a must. The need for more skilled AI professionals means resellers need to be strategic about training and partnerships. Offering or facilitating access to training can provide added value to clients, ensuring they can manage and maximise their AI investments.

AI technology often involves an upfront investment. For many clients, the biggest question is whether the return on investment justifies the cost. As part of the sales process, it is recommended that you provide clear, data-driven examples of how AI has improved efficiency and customer satisfaction.

A phased approach

To address these challenges, Cirrus has developed a phased approach to AI adoption that can help resellers guide their clients through the integration process. This approach ensures that each stage delivers measurable benefits before proceeding to the next.

• Phase 1: Agent assist. The first phase of AI adoption is crucial for laying a strong foundation for your AI’s effectiveness. This phase begins with enterprise knowledge orchestration, where existing company information, like product manuals, previous customer interactions, organisational processes and more, are centralised and formatted for AI training. Rather than simply organising this knowledge, AI uses it to generate and refine its responses. Agents play a key role in this phase by scoring and validating AI responses, which creates a continuous feedback loop. This loop is essential for improving the accuracy and relevance of AI over time, ensuring that it delivers the most effective support during customer interactions.
• Phase 2: Customer assist. With AI supporting agents, the next step automates routine customer enquiries across all channels. AI tools like chatbots and voice assistants handle low-value interactions, ensuring consistent responses. Live analytics monitor both AI and agent interactions, quickly identifying issues to maintain quality and consistency.
• Phase 3: Customer self-service. The final phase empowers customers to manage their inquiries via advanced self-service options. AI uses customer history and preferences for proactive engagement, facilitating more complex transactions like account updates or purchases within a seamless experience that improves with each interaction.

This phased AI adoption approach allows contact centres to integrate AI gradually, delivering immediate and tangible benefits. By focusing on agent empowerment, customer assistance and self-service, resellers offer a structured path to modernising operations and enhancing customer satisfaction.

Unmissable opportunities

So why should resellers care about AI? Because it represents an unmissable opportunity to grow your business by offering solutions that your clients increasingly need. By integrating AI into your proposition using a phased approach, you position yourself as a forward-thinking partner capable of delivering the advanced and scalable solutions your clients need to compete.

This phased model allows resellers to introduce AI gradually, helping clients to see tangible results at each stage and reducing the risks associated with large-scale implementations. Whether it’s improving agent performance, automating routine tasks, or enhancing customer self-service, each phase offers a clear, measurable benefit that can be communicated to clients as a key part of their AI journey.

In a market where AI is quickly becoming a standard expectation, resellers have a unique opportunity to lead the charge. By understanding the challenges, offering a structured, phased approach, and clearly demonstrating the value of AI, resellers can ensure they’re not just keeping up with the competition, but staying ahead of it.

Now is the time to explore AI integration as a key strategy for your business, ensuring you’re equipped to help your clients tackle the future of customer service.

This opinion piece was included in our October 2024 print issue. You can read the magazine in full here.