Let’s play Contact Centre Top Trumps

In the game of Top Trumps, categories are compared to see who comes up Top Trump. If we were to play a card for agents and AI, who would be the winner?

Contact centres are complex machines. As the bridge between consumers and brands, they have one clear mission: deliver exceptional customer service, no matter what. The elements that make up contact centres have unique capabilities and roles, and the key to success is finding the right balance between them.

Let’s compare two fundamental components of contact centres: agents and artificial intelligence. Both are crucial to the success of the business, but for very different reasons. To find out how organisations can exploit their respective strengths, let’s play contact centre top trumps!

The Agent

Agents are the backbone of contact centre operations, and they will remain so even as the market evolves around them.

The primary reason is the immeasurable value of human connection. The agent’s ability to empathise with customers and provide an emotional response results in high satisfaction and retention rates. Empathy is vital for responding to more complex queries, which often require a delicate personal approach.

Customer service goes beyond simply resolving queries; genuine engagement is necessary for building long-term customer relationships.

However, agents handle tens – sometimes hundreds – of queries a day. It is challenging to manage high call volumes, record data and insights from customers, and deliver a consistent, empathetic service.

It is here where contact centres can think about drawing another card.

Artificial Intelligence

AI has been widely deployed as a technological sidekick for agents. Where agents excel in delivering the human touch, AI can handle a high volume of queries quickly and accurately, resulting in low wait times and cost-effective interactions.

This technology’s strengths lie in its ability to automate processes, store huge amounts of data, and grant real-time access to insights and reports – all of which are designed to support the agents in their roles.

AI reduces the agent’s workload by offloading monotonous tasks that can be completed with automated responses and deploying powerful language analytics tools to enable more accurate compliance and quality assurance.

It also offers predictive analysis to assess the result of each customer engagement to help improve and evolve processes as required. Instead of agents having to note down and record key insights from their conversations, AI automatically does it for them.

Playing your cards right

At the end of the game, the winner is the player holding the most cards. For contact centres, the victor in a crowded marketplace is the one who retains the most customers, having established strong, long-term relationships founded on loyalty.

The key to success: make sure to play your cards right.

At Cirrus, we recognise that striking this balance is one of the most crucial tasks for contact centres, which is why we promote agent-first solutions, underpinned with innovative technologies. Our offering is founded on three pillars: enabling customer communication across all channels, empowering agents to operate at peak performance without being overwhelmed, and delivering invaluable insights every step of the way.

If you’d like support in the ceaseless game of contact centre top trumps, get in touch now!

Written by Paul Barclay, COO.