https://www.channelfutures.com/wp-content/themes/channelfutures_child/assets/images/logo/footer-new-logo.png
  • Home
  • Technologies
    • Back
    • SDN/SD-WAN
    • Cloud
    • RMM/PSA
    • Security
    • Telephony/UC/Collaboration
    • Cable
    • Mobility & Wireless
    • Fiber/Ethernet
    • Data Centers
    • Backup & Disaster Recovery
    • IoT
    • Desktop
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • Analytics
  • Strategy
    • Back
    • Mergers and Acquisitions
    • Channel Research
    • Business Models
    • Distribution
    • Technology Solutions Brokerages
    • Sales & Marketing
    • Best Practices
    • Vertical Markets
    • Regulation & Compliance
  • MSP 501
    • Back
    • MSP 501 Rankings
    • NextGen 101 Rankings
  • Intelligence
    • Back
    • Galleries
    • Podcasts
    • From the Industry
    • Reports/Digital Issues
    • Webinars
    • White Papers
  • Channel Futures TV
  • EMEA
  • Channel Chatter
    • Back
    • People on the Move
    • New/Changing Channel Programs
    • New Products & Services
    • Industry Honors
  • Resources
    • Back
    • Channel Futures 20: Top Tech Providers
    • Advisory Boards
    • Industry Organizations
    • Our Sponsors
    • Advertise
    • 2023 Editorial Calendar
  • Awards
    • Back
    • 2022 MSP 501
    • Channel Influencers
    • Circle of Excellence
    • DE&I 101
    • Technology Advisor 101 (TA 101)
    • Channel Leaders Lists
  • Events
    • Back
    • 2023 Call for Speakers
    • CP Conference & Expo
    • MSP Summit
    • Channel Partners Europe
    • Channel Partners Event Coverage
    • Webinars
    • Industry Events
  • About Us
  • DE&I
Channel Futures
  • NEWSLETTER
  • Home
  • Technologies
    • Back
    • SDN/SD-WAN
    • Cloud
    • RMM/PSA
    • Security
    • Telephony/UC/Collaboration
    • Cable
    • Mobility & Wireless
    • Fiber/Ethernet
    • Data Centers
    • Backup & Disaster Recovery
    • IoT
    • Desktop
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • Analytics
  • Strategy
    • Back
    • Mergers and Acquisitions
    • Channel Research
    • Business Models
    • Distribution
    • Technology Solutions Brokerages
    • Sales & Marketing
    • Best Practices
    • Vertical Markets
    • Regulation & Compliance
  • MSP 501
    • Back
    • MSP 501 Rankings
    • NextGen 101 Rankings
  • Intelligence
    • Back
    • Galleries
    • Podcasts
    • From the Industry
    • Reports/Digital Issues
    • Webinars
    • White Papers
  • Channel Futures TV
  • EMEA
  • Channel Chatter
    • Back
    • People on the Move
    • New/Changing Channel Programs
    • New Products & Services
    • Industry Honors
  • Resources
    • Back
    • Channel Futures 20: Top Tech Providers
    • Advisory Boards
    • Industry Organizations
    • Our Sponsors
    • Advertise
    • 2023 Editorial Calendar
  • Awards
    • Back
    • 2022 MSP 501
    • Channel Influencers
    • Circle of Excellence
    • DE&I 101
    • Technology Advisor 101 (TA 101)
    • Channel Leaders Lists
  • Events
    • Back
    • 2023 Call for Speakers
    • CP Conference & Expo
    • MSP Summit
    • Channel Partners Europe
    • Channel Partners Event Coverage
    • Webinars
    • Industry Events
  • About Us
  • DE&I
    • Newsletter
  • REGISTER
  • MSPs
  • VARs / SIs
  • Agents
  • Cloud Service Providers
  • Channel Partners Events
 Channel Futures

Best Practices


Shutterstock

Call Center AI, contact center artificial intelligence

AI and the Contact Center: Understanding Opportunities and Challenges

AI is getting closer to going mainstream in contact centers. Plan carefully and consider the CX.
Unify's Ross Sedgewick

Ross Sedgewick

Unify's Lisa Campbell

Lisa Campbell

By Ross Sedgewick and Lisa Campbell, Unify

Channel Partners Insights logoFor most contact centers, artificial intelligence (AI) adoption is still in an embryonic stage. Companies like Google and Microsoft are in a race to become AI-first, so there is plenty to suggest this next leap in consumer engagement models will become commonplace quite soon. The slowest adopters will ultimately take the hardest hits to their bottom lines.

Yet contact center employees and the industry at large are apprehensive about the impact of AI on service levels and jobs. Current research in the United Kingdom by the IPPR Commission on Economic Justice indicates that as many as a third of all jobs may be lost to AI in the ensuing decade – with contact center work being among the most vulnerable to this development. Last year a study by the progressive think tank warned that jobs generating a third of annual pay in the UK were at risk of being automated. Without giving a timescale, it suggested that middle-income jobs such as call-center staff, secretaries and factory workers were likely to bear the brunt.

However, because of significant commercial gains and changes to customer engagement models, AI is poised to become far more mainstream in contact centers, producing both challenges and opportunities for organizations as a result

And, for modern-day contact centers, regulation is prevalent – significantly impacting the current market. Big data, data lakes and analytics are fed by consumers who are often data “pragmatists,” or unconcerned about sharing their data. GDPR regulation, along with recent controversies surrounding Facebook and Cambridge Analytica, means front-line agents will need to work harder to engender consumer trust, especially when capturing personal data. They will also need to have much greater awareness of how their organization intends to use data in case customers have questions about privacy.

Embracing AI Opportunities in Contact Centers

Given organizations’ increasing prioritization of employee engagement, we hope to see a more committed collective agent workforce moving forward. With the goal of prompting an increased average length of service, this may lead to more positive impacts on the customer experience because the brain trust of relationship context that remains can be leveraged by both the organization and the customer.

AI and data utilization present exciting opportunities for all contact center technology providers. AI encompasses an intricate weaving of emotional intelligence, machine learning, system of things and customer analytics. Given this wide scope, AI use cases within contact centers can be quite varied. A primary reason for using AI in the contact center is to quickly serve transactional, predictable interactions in the most accessible way, while reducing the requirement for costly (or unnecessary) human intervention.

When you delve into the inner workings of any contact center, customer communications can typically be categorized into types, many of which can use AI to deliver an automated response. Provided that a powerful tool exists that accesses the knowledge library or uses machine learning, AI can prove quicker and more effective than a human.

Considering studies where AI is currently outperforming doctors and lawyers, contact centers need to determine how AI and agents can work in harmony to manage all customers across all communication types in an effective way. This is accomplished by …

  • Page 1
  • Page 2
Tags: Agents Best Practices Business Models Cloud EMEA Telephony/UC/Collaboration

Most Recent


  • Partner Program
    Coalesce Partners Gain Revamped Partner Program with Expanded Training, Resources
    Coalesce's data transformation solution is built exclusively for Snowflake Data Cloud.
  • call for speakers
    Channel Futures Leadership Summit Call for Speakers Open
    Speaker applications for “The New Style of Leadership” are open until July 3.
  • Faces of the Partner
    Faces of the Partner: 6 New Tech Advisors Entering the Channel
    A significant portion of the partner community is retiring. Who will replace them?
  • Zane Rowe
    VMware CFO Zane Rowe Taking New Role with Workday
    Rowe will be replaced as VMware's CFO by a board member.

3 comments

  1. Avatar tony rich June 12, 2019 @ 7:34 am
    Reply

    so good to see this technology really making a difference but is more impressive how human these Bots appear to be – long gone are the days of the automated robotic response.

  2. Avatar Carla Botton Safigan June 14, 2019 @ 5:54 am
    Reply

    Amazing how this can help manage customer requests

  3. Avatar Arthur Diggs August 27, 2019 @ 10:55 pm
    Reply

    Good Job Lisa and Ross! In today’s business world AI is making its way very rapidly creating both opportunities as well as challenges for companies to adopt it. A primary reason for using AI in the contact center is to quickly serve transactional, predictable interactions in the most accessible way while reducing the requirement for costly human intervention. AI encompasses an intricate weaving of emotional intelligence, machine learning, system of things and customer analytics to provide a better and efficient result within a short span of time. I have come across many AI tools such as CSAT.AI, Salesforce Einstein, MaestroQA which are helping companies in this regard.

Leave a comment Cancel reply

-or-

Log in with your Channel Futures account

Alternatively, post a comment by completing the form below:

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Content

  • CF Top Gun 51 with new logo
    2021 Top Gun 51 Nominations Are Open — Apply Now!
  • USB drive
    A Coup and a Theft: Why MSPs Can’t Let Clients Get Lax About USB Security
  • Ransomware skull and crossbones
    JBS Did What it 'Needed to Do' with $11 Million Ransom Payment
  • Cloud Certification
    CompTIA Updates Cloud+ Certification, Drops New AI Guide for Businesses

Upcoming Events

View all

Channel Partners Europe

June 13, 2023 - June 14, 2023

Channel Futures Leadership Summit

October 30, 2023 - November 2, 2023

Channel Partners Conference & Expo

March 11, 2024 - March 14, 2024

Galleries

View all

Survey: Backups Are Prime Targets for Ransomware Attacks, Most Remain Exposed

May 26, 2023

Faces of the Partner: 6 New Tech Advisors Entering the Channel

May 26, 2023

Broadcom-VMware, Alibaba Cloud, Red Hat, Google Cloud: A Hefty Roundup

May 24, 2023

Industry Perspectives

View all

Dell Technologies World: Dell Apex Expanded Across On-Premises, Cloud and Edge

May 22, 2023

Identity Is Increasingly Valuable – and Targeted

May 18, 2023

Gaining a Competitive Advantage through AV Managed Services

May 10, 2023

Webinars

View all

From Problem to Profit: Mastering the Science of Selling Using Business Outcomes

May 9, 2023

Meet the 2023 Channel Futures Channel Influencers

April 13, 2023

DE&I Dialogue: How the Right DE&I Initiatives Can Propel Your Business

April 5, 2023

White Papers

View all

6 UCaaS Reseller Challenges and How Real World Businesses Solved Them

February 1, 2023

Frost Radar: North American UCaaS Market, 2022

February 1, 2023

The Complete Guide to White-Label UCaaS for Reseller Success

February 1, 2023

Channel Futures TV

View all

Coffee with Craig and James Episode No. 123: MartinWolf M&A Advisors, CP Expo Preview

UScellular Takes On Rivals with Partner Program Simplicity

April 21, 2023

OpenText Simplifying Deal Registration, Doubling Down on MDF

April 21, 2023

Everything-as-a-Service: CloudBlue Touts Critical Customer Transition

April 18, 2023

Twitter

ChannelFutures

Who has been a diversity, equity & inclusion role model in your career? Take a moment to honor their initiatives in… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

May 29, 2023
ChannelFutures

Paul Green @msp_voice will help MSPs gain more #customers and #sales at @ChannelEurop June 13.… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

May 26, 2023
ChannelFutures

.@coalesceIO unveils revamped partner program. #datatransformation dlvr.it/SphJm4 https://t.co/s7fYAVmFGD

May 26, 2023
ChannelFutures

.@Veeam #Ransomeware survey: backups are not adequately protected, 85% suffered at least 1 attack in past year… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

May 26, 2023
ChannelFutures

.@MSPSummit call for speakers is open now through July 3. The theme for this year’s summit is “The New Style of Lea… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

May 26, 2023
ChannelFutures

Channel Futures interviewed six individuals who started an agency in the last two years. dlvr.it/SpgV6l https://t.co/JXKhJcw31A

May 26, 2023
ChannelFutures

Channel Futures interviewed six individuals who started an agency in the last two years. dlvr.it/SpgTQg https://t.co/7eIp0XgwQ2

May 26, 2023
ChannelFutures

Channel Futures interviewed six individuals who started an agency in the last two years. dlvr.it/Spg7JZ https://t.co/ETaeFysCYO

May 26, 2023

MSP 501

The industry's largest and most comprehensive partner awards program.

Newsletters and Updates

Sign up for The Channel Report, Channel Futures Update, MSP 501 Newsletter and more.

Live Channel Events

Get the latest information on the next industry-leading Channel Partners event.

Galleries

Educational slide shows and images from live events.

Media Kit And Advertising

Want to reach our audience? Access our media kit.

DISCOVER MORE FROM INFORMA TECH

  • Channel Partners Events
  • Telecoms.com
  • MSP 501
  • Black Hat
  • IoT World Today
  • Omdia

WORKING WITH US

  • Contact
  • About Us
  • Advertise
  • Newsletter

FOLLOW Channel Futures ON SOCIAL

  • Privacy
  • CCPA: “Do Not Sell My Data”
  • Cookie Policy
  • Terms
Copyright © 2023 Informa PLC. Informa PLC is registered in England and Wales with company number 8860726 whose registered and Head office is 5 Howick Place, London, SW1P 1WG.
This website uses cookies, including third party ones, to allow for analysis of how people use our website in order to improve your experience and our services. By continuing to use our website, you agree to the use of such cookies. Click here for more information on our Cookie Policy and Privacy Policy.
X