What Is Real-Time AI Agent Contact Center Assist?

Does your contact center team often have to deal with difficult, unique, non-playbook situations? Customers can sometimes make strange requests that they haven’t come across before. Or the information your team requires to answer an inquiry might not be immediately available.

Here’s the truth; your customers expect the best service possible, all the time. They want the process of reaching out to you to be smooth, fast, and to yield the results they need. Any technology or tool that you can use to make that happen needs to be utilized, and that includes the latest advancements in artificial intelligence.

Contact centers, call centers, and live chatbot agents at the world’s best companies are all using AI to give outstanding customer support. And one of the most useful examples is real-time agent assist. This is a new AI innovation that’s helping customer service agents to use their time productively, and achieve outstanding results.

So, what is real-time agent assist? How does it work and could it help you to achieve your ideal business outcomes? Let’s dive in.

What is Real-Time Agent Assist?

Real-time agent assist, sometimes known as AI agent assist, is a useful tool that allows you to deal with customer issues. It listens to phone calls to understand what your customer needs, based on natural language processing and machine learning. Then, the technology offers real-time suggestions on the best way to handle the inquiry. It can recommend solutions that you haven’t thought about.

Real-time agent assist can analyze the tone of your customer interactions, either via voice analysis or the written word. It can then suggest ways to take the tension out of the situation, when needed.

It also offers step-by-step guidance for complex customer interactions. This could be unique requests that don’t come up often, or useful for when a customer service agent is new in the job and still learning the ropes.

Your customer service agent will get real-time alerts and real-time insights. And relevant knowledge base articles will be given to them in realtime to facilitate a superb customer service. This gives your team quick access to the most relevant information possible.

Real-time agent assist can also help your team members comply with privacy policies, always follow best-practice in the storing of cookies, and protect your customer data. Live steps could be suggested through the phone call on how they can do that.

And real-time agent assist can also integrate with all your CRM systems, as well as helping with site navigation on complicated platforms.

Can real-time agent assist improve customer service?

Yes, AI-driven customer service workflows can give your agents insights they can’t get any other way. If they’re having a difficult day, or are facing a new request, then the technology is invaluable. It ensures an outstanding agent performance across all communication channels like social media or a customer community portal.

Firstly, your human or voice agents’ efficiency and productivity will improve. They’ll also feel reassured that they’ll be supported when they get a tricky inquiry.

It also helps to reduce after-call work for contact center teams, along with customer service representatives who pick up the mantle at the end of their shift.

Quality assurance is guaranteed using real-time agent assist, as long as it’s configured correctly. And phone calls from customers will be dealt with faster, meaning improved customer satisfaction.

Real-time agent assist can also remove the possibility of human error. If your agent remember something incorrectly, it’ll be pointed out by the real-time guidance tool. This is especially important for the agent experience, because they’ll feel reassured and protected.

A real-time agent assist feature ensures frictionless experiences for everyone involved. It’s an AI-powered tool certainly worth trying out, even if just on a free trial.

How is real-time agent assist different from traditional assist?

Previously, traditional assist meant that the agent had static scripts to use, and they didn’t adapt live, based on the responses the customer gave.

Likewise, the agent had to manually search through knowledge bases themselves. By contrast, real-time agent assist offers up the most relevant articles, before you’ve even asked for it. The agent can thus stay focused on the customer, rather than being distracted on the call.

These improvements result in an exceptional service for your customers. Responses can be given faster, with more intelligence. Average handling time goes down as a result, and it reduces the cognitive load on your agent during the call.

How can agents use AI assist to reduce their time on call?

Agents can use real-time assist to get immediate access to critical information. This ensures real-time support without any delays, and can therefore improve their conversation intelligence. The best agents can be trained to use this at the fastest possible response times.

It also ensures that your call center agent does an excellent job, such as complying with the contact center’s regulatory needs. Your agent productivity will go up on each call, meaning it’s dealt with faster. Language barriers can be sidestepped, too, and you’ll be able to streamline workflows. All of this means that the first call resolution ratio goes up, and your customer queries are sorted out fast.

How will AI agent assist improve in the future?

Agent assist technology is only at the beginning of its lifespan. There are plenty of ways that it can continue to move forward, and give the best possible support to your agents.

1. AI will become more context-aware over the coming years. This means that there’ll be deeper integration of natural language understanding and sentiment analysis. The tools will also be able to assess not only what the customer wants, but what they actually need. It will result in much more successful interactions, and improved interpretation of customer sentiment throughout.

2. Personalization of the recommendations will also improve, ensuring high service quality. The customer’s past buying history and preferences will be factored into the live recommendations made to agents.

3. Multimodal capabilities that integrate voice, text, images and video will become more widespread. This could mean that your agent gets visual step-by-step guidance on how to help a customer with technical setup.

4. AI systems will also aim to detect GDPR and privacy policy breaches or risky language in real time. This guarantees that all agents stay within regulatory bounds - giving protection not just to your customers, but to your agents themselves.

How can agents be trained to use real-time AI?

Not all customer service team members have had access to the right tools throughout their career, meaning there’s a large percentage of the workforce unfamiliar with these products. In this case, correct training is crucial to ensure customer satisfaction. Otherwise, your human agents may struggle to follow best practices.

To start with, the agents need foundational training. This explains how the AI works, what it can (and can’t) do, and how to interpret the information it gives you.

The next step is to run simulations using the tool. Role-playing scenarios in a safe, relaxed environment can build your agent’s confidence. Agent efficiency with the tool will quickly improve, resulting in high-quality service and an improved average handle time.

Ongoing coaching must continue, even beyond the initial training. New generative AI tools are coming out all the time, and contact center agents must be ‘current’ with these. Supervisors for the agents can use performance analytics to see how the agent is doing, and then design tailored training sessions based on where they can improved. Training is also another way to avoid agent burnout, as they feel valued and fulfilled.

The goal is to make every customer agent feel confident that they’re not being replaced. The real-time assistance AI is there to help them, not hurt them.

Which other Copilot solutions exist for call centers?

Real-time agent assist is a popular example of a Copilot solution for call centers. But it isn’t the only one available. There are plenty of others that aim to give exceptional customer experiences, reduce operational costs, and always provide instant access to accurate information.

1. One example is post-call summarization Copilots, which automatically generates a summary of customer conversations. This can avoid manual note taking after a call is finished and ensure accurate documentation.

2. A second solution is scheduling Copilots. These help with workforce management, because you can analyze call volume patterns and agent availability. This ensures that an incoming call always goes to the agent that’s best positioned to handle it.

As technology continues to improve, these Copilot solutions will become more accurate, more intuitive, and adopt newer functionality.

The benefits of real-time agent assist

Real time agent assist is here, and it’s here to stay. Your customer support teams can reach faster resolutions, sidestep repetitive tasks, always give the best possible information, and meet all your customer’s needs. Your agent will also spend less time on calls. What’s not to love?

Your company has lots of real-time assist tools to choose from. Make sure to do thorough research before picking one, to ensure that it delivers everything you need. New agents must be thoroughly trained on how to use it, such as dealing with complex issues and optimizing the customer’s journey. This can ensure that the AI and your human agents are working hand-in-hand, thus turning them into “AI agents”.

There are countless case studies demonstrating how effective this AI technology is. And these marketing efforts are being backed by customers who love the product. So, don’t wait too long, and give your business a competitive advantage by utilizing real-time agent assistance platforms.