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Power Contact Center Agents with New Machine-Learning Capabilities

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Headset supercharged
Image: BillionPhotos.com - stock.adobe.com
During the AWS re:Invent conference last year, I wrote about new capabilities added to Amazon Connect, our easy-to-use omnichannel cloud contact center. Now, I am happy to announce the general availability of two of these capabilities, Voice ID and Wisdom, and the launch of a new one. High-volume outbound communications allows, as the name implies, the initiation and management of outbound communications over voice, SMS, or email.
 
Amazon Connect Wisdom
Wisdom reduces the time agents spend searching for answers. Today, when agents require access to information to help a customer, they lose time trying to navigate different data sources in siloes: FAQ, files, wiki pages, customer call history, knowledge bases, etc.
 
When using Wisdom, agents simply enter a question or phrase in their agent desktop application, such as “what is the pet policy in hotel rooms,” and Wisdom searches connected repositories and returns the most relevant information and best answer to handle the customer issue.
 
Amazon Connect Voice ID
How many times have you been through an authentication procedure when calling a contact center? Voice ID simplifies this to make voice interactions faster and more secure. It uses machine learning to provide real-time caller authentication based on the caller’s voice.
 
To effectively recognize me as “Bailey,” Voice ID must learn how I talk. This is the enrollment phase. It only requires 30 seconds of voice recording to enroll a caller.
 
When I call the same contact center again, Voice ID compares the sound of my voice with the one enrolled earlier. This is the verification phase. It only requires between five and 10 seconds of my voice to authenticate me. The verification phase generates a confidence score and a status displayed in the agent desktop app.
 
High-Volume Outbound Communications
Typical contact centers are designed to receive customer calls. However, there is a growing set of use cases where contact centers send outbound communications as well. For example, to call customers back, inform them about the progress of a case, confirm an appointment, renew a subscription, or for telemarketing, just to name a few.
 
The majority of these outbound communications are phone calls. When doing so, traditional contact center agents dial the number provided by a customer management system and wait for someone to answer. Typically, only 10% of the calls are answered. This process is highly inefficient.
 
The predictive dialer makes more calls than available agents. It uses metrics such as campaign performance, expected pick-up rates, and the number of available agents to adjust the number of calls. When a call is answered, it detects when a human is on the line (vs. an automatic machine, a fax line, etc.). Only calls answered by humans are routed to an available agent. The Amazon Connect agent application shows the call script that was specified during setup, along with relevant customer information. The progressive dialer is more conservative; it uses a 1:1 ratio between calls and available agents. Amazon Connect not only adds high-volume outbound communication capabilities for voice, but also for SMS, and email.
 
Contact center managers have access to real-time metrics such as contact volume, abandonment rates, average connection times, and minimum ring times to optimize agent efficiency. These metrics help to understand the status of their campaigns and ensure compliance with applicable regulations, such as maximum call abandonment rates. Contact center managers use historical reports of these metrics to understand the effectiveness of all their communications campaigns over time.
 
If you want to try it out yourself, you may apply to the preview by filling out this form. As always, Amazon Connect makes it easy to go build your own contact center in the cloud today.