RingCentral today unveiled new innovations for its native, AI-powered contact center solution, RingCX. The enhancements include real-time AI assistance for agents and supervisors, and advanced AI-based scoring, coaching, and feedback for agents.
RingCX was introduced just one year ago. By the time the solution became generally available three months later, RingCentral was able to announce that 50+ deals had closed, two of those for customers with 1,000+ agents. The company’s sales leadership credited disruptive pricing and integrated AI for the early sales success.
Since the GenAI explosion in November 2022, the customer experience use cases of the technology have been much talked and written about. What most customers and vendors I speak to agree is that agent, and more recently supervisor, tools are the preferred initial investment. There is less risk of using AI/GenAI when a human remains “in the loop,” as opposed to turning it loose in customer-facing applications.
Understanding the CX market as well as they do, RingCentral has focused its internal development on solutions for agents and supervisors with:
The screenshot below shows a supervisor screen from the AI QM Coaching Insights feature. It shows development highlights for one agent for one month, August 2024. It goes beyond individual scorecards for specific interactions and summarizes agent strengths and opportunities for improvement. Depending on the size of the organization, Coaching Insights could be shared with training departments or human resources for future agent development planning.
RingCX AI Agent Assist, RingCX AI Supervisor Assist, and RingCX AI Quality Management Coaching Insights are all available in early access preview in the United States.
The RingCX platform allows customers to integrate their preferred Intelligent Virtual Agent (IVA) solutions. Open APIs enable seamless integration with existing or desired IVA technologies. Implementation of the selected IVA is accomplished using RingCentral’s no-code builder and library of pre-configured templates. These templates cover common customer service scenarios, including adding items to a shopping cart, scheduling appointments, and displaying course information and associated fees.
The RingCX AI ecosystem features pre-built integrations with IVA providers including Yellow.ai, Cognigy, and Google Dialogflow. RingCentral has now expanded its IVA partner network to include Omilia and Replicant.
As well as announcing the AI solutions described above, RingCentral offered an update on how RingCX was received in the market in its first year. The company reports it continues to see strong demand for RingCX, which now has over 350 customers - up more than 70% in Q2 2024 compared to the 200+ customers that were reported at the end of Q1 2024. Recent large-customer wins include one of the top 25 largest counties in the U.S.
RingCentral offered me information about a soon-to-be-published case study about a recent RingCX win. The Husband & Wife Law Team is a Phoenix-based personal injury firm that uses both RingEX and RingCX. Founded in 1996 by a now-married pair of lawyers that met in law school, the firm has six offices across Arizona.
Prior to moving to RingCentral, The Husband & Wife Law Team used another VoIP telecom system. Joe Phelps, Intake Director for The Husband & Wife Law Team began a search for a new solution because the existing system was missing key functionality that the growing firm needed.
After looking at other cloud phone providers, The Husband & Wife Law Team chose RingCentral. “The analytics were so much more detailed and useful than what we saw elsewhere…but the major factor was RingCentral’s new RingSense technology, because one of our strategic priorities was to improve our workflows with AI,” said Phelps.
On the heels of The Husband & Wife Law Team completing its RingEX implementation, RingCentral announced the availability of RingCX. Phelps reports the new contact center solution seemed an ideal fit for the firm’s intake team, which handles a high volume of potential new client interactions a month. Phelps saw several ways RingCX could make the team more efficient and effective, including the omnichannel capabilities and the AI coaching tools available with RingSense for CX.
Phelps reports he was able to set up workflows with email so callers can opt to send an email inquiry rather than wait on hold. Those emails go to the next available team member. “That saves us time and helps potential clients who’d rather connect by email,” said Phelps. In the future, the company is looking to take advantage of all the digital channels RingCX offers, which will help them keep call volume manageable and give potential new clients additional communication options.
What were the business outcomes of deploying RingCX? The Husband & Wife Law team reports a 66% improvement in call handling speed of answer. By implementing automated scorecards, managers saved 65% of the time usually spent analyzing team members’ calls.
Later today, at 10 am Pacific time/ 1 pm Eastern, RingCentral is hosting a webinar to explore today’s announcements and their role in helping companies deliver seamless customer experiences. Register to hear customer experience futurist Blake Morgan lead-off the event with a discussion of her latest book, The 8 Laws of Customer-Focused Leadership. Kira Makagon, chief innovation officer and Jim Dvorkin, SVP of customer engagement, and John Finch, SVP of product marketing, all of RingCentral, will be joined by three RingCX customers, including The Husband & Wife Team’s Phelps.
