Google CCAI: Taking Contact Centers to the Next Level

If your contact center organization isn’t yet using artificial intelligence (AI) to deliver greater efficiencies and improved customer experiences, surely doing so is on your mind. As we’re learning from early adopters of Google Cloud Contact Center AI (CCAI), which became generally available last month, the benefits are not to be ignored.

 

Here’s a quick look at how two companies in two distinct industries are finding value using AI in their contact centers.

 

Scouting around for auto, health, home, or other insurance plans can be a trying experience for anybody… so many providers to consider, so many policies to wade through, so many points to clarify. That’s a pain point online insurance aggregator Policybazaar.com aims to eliminate with the help of an AI-infused contact center.

 

As discussed during the recent Google Cloud-sponsored webinar hosted by No Jitter and Enterprise Connect, Policybazaar is one of the earliest CCAI adopters. The company turned to CCAI as it sought a way to provide better recommendations and optimize the insurance shopping experience for customers.

 

Now when customers reach out for guidance, Policybazaar greets them with a virtual agent built using Dialogflow, a core component of CCAI. An end-to-end development suite, Dialogflow enables developers to create conversational interfaces for their websites, mobile apps, and more. Using natural language understanding, Dialogflow recognizes customer intents and enables natural-feeling interactions.

 

Since implementing Virtual Agent, one of two features that became GA with CCAI last month, Policybazaar has reported topline growth that it associates with the ability to deliver improved recommendations and an exceptional customer experience. Specifically, the company now closes more than 13,000 in sales per month, totaling over $2 million in additional monthly revenue.

 

Besides giving customers 24/7 access to immediate and personalized conversational self-service, Virtual Agent automates basic interactions and provides seamless handoffs to human agents for more complex issues through real-time call transcription.

 

Such is the capability from which retailer Marks & Spencer, another early adopter, is reaping benefits. Since its pre-GA implementation, the company has accurately routed more than eight million calls from a self-service interaction to agents that could best serve their needs. In these handoffs, Virtual Agent assessed hundreds of intents.

 

The benefits are twofold. Agents are happier because they will no longer have to spend their days redirecting calls, and instead will be addressing more pressing customer needs and delivering first-call resolutions. And customers are more satisfied with quicker, better service. The proof is in the pudding, as they say: Marks & Spencer reports an improvement of more than 10 seconds in its critical average-handle-time metric.

 

Whether using AI to support chat-based help, as in the case of Policybazaar, or to deliver self-service and seamless routing to best agent, as in the case of Marks & Spencer, the AI capabilities have helped to build brand loyalty. And what company doesn’t want — or rather, need — that in today’s marketplace where one bad experience can send a customer scurrying to competitor?

 

Tune in to the Contact Center AI webinar, featuring a fireside chat led by contact center analyst Sheila McGee-Smith with Google’s Matt Jones, AI product manager, and Celeste Grade, alliance relationship manager, to learn more about Google CCAI and how your contact center can benefit.