The quest to improve customer experience

By Morné Stoltz, Head of Department: Broker Distribution, MiWay

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) have the potential to revolutionise call centres for the better, but only if insurers (and others) know what they are trying to achieve.

Call centres have become a fact of business life, but they have never been perfect. However, significant technology developments over the past few years look set to overturn a status quo that has never really satisfied anybody. But, as always, companies need to be clear about what they want to achieve.

A small hint: the traditional focus on cost which has ruled call centre technology implementations in the past is not going to cut it. The emergence of affordable smartphones and the migration of business and social life onto mobile platforms with well-designed, user-friendly mobile apps has radically changed customer expectations.

In this new age in which customer experience is paramount, the traditional call centre with its clumsy IVR (interactive voice response) system seems positively antediluvian: too time-consuming, too impersonal.

Alongside the mobile revolution and all its consequences, another important technological development has been the emergence of the cloud. In this context, the cloud has made it possible to access the powerful data processing and storage capabilities that AI and ML need without the massive capital and operational investments that traditional, on-premise data centres would require.

In short, AI and ML are now able to be deployed at scale. The question is how they can help improve the customer experience while also making the call centre itself operate more smoothly. Recent research shows that while hard benefits like cost reduction remain critical, softer benefits like improved customer experience and loyalty are now key drivers for investment in AI.

There are several avenues that companies should be exploring in their bid to improve their ability to compete for customer loyalty and a better bottom line:

Better enabled human agents

AI and ML capabilities are advancing fast and are now being used to feed human agents with information and insights in real time to help them service customers better and faster. For example, a type of AI called sentiment analysis can analyse customer’s requests and recommend a bouquet of solutions to the agent, who can then use his or her human judgement to decide which ones to offer. AI can also be used to help in areas like customer retention by identifying trigger phrases like “I’m closing my account” and rapidly serving up special offers designed to prevent customer churn.

An important corollary is that agents will need suitable training to enable them to wield these sophisticated tools successfully in the heat of a customer call.

Increasingly intelligent customer assistants/ bots

Talkbots or chatbots can be infuriating if they are not properly designed, but when used intelligently they can improve the customer experience by providing basic information rapidly. Customers don’t want to wait for an agent for answers to basic questions, such as “What is my excess?” or “Is water damage covered by my policy?” and so on. The AI has to be able to discern quickly when it cannot help and redirect the customer to a human agent.

Predictive call routing

Call centres have always tried to get the customer to an agent with the right skills, but the criteria and mechanisms used have been, frankly, rather primitive. Using AI, it is increasingly possible to identify customer personality types and route their calls to the most appropriate agent for a better, more productive customer experience.

AI and ML are not silver bullets, but if used wisely they have undoubted promise in the quest to improve the customer experience and optimise the call centre.

MiWay is a licensed non-life insurer and Financial Services Provider (FSP 33970).