Saved by Zero (Contact Resolution)

As AI and chatbots become more sophisticated, they should be able to resolve ever more complex queries without the need for human intervention. Technology alone, though, isn’t a silver bullet, Atkinson cautions: “Don’t expect the technology to solve your problem. You have to think through how it will be used, who will be using it—customer personas are helpful here—and make sure customers don’t get stuck in the system. That’s a worst practice: Delivering the customer to a dead end with no way to proceed without starting all over again.”

Another bad practice when implementing zero-contact resolution is for companies to disregard the customer experience silos that build up over time and remain disconnected from the customer interest, says Tibor Vass, senior director of global product marketing at Genesys, a contact center systems provider. Current use of AI is unfair, he says, with companies leveraging the power of advanced technology sometimes against their customers’ interests (e.g. hyper-targeting them with annoying marketing or sales messages rather than listening to their needs).

That should be replaced with a more human and customer-centric approach. Zero-contact resolution is a more democratized use of AI, where the technology works in the customers’ interests and considers their experiences, rather than focusing only on the company’s benefits, he states.

PLENTY LEFT FOR PEOPLE

While zero-contact resolution is optimal in many situations, “we’re a long way off from everything being automated,” Snell says. “Many customers still like the human touch.”

“In other cases, even if it is technically possible, zero-contact resolution might not be the best solution,” Vass says. “At Genesys, we advocate experience as a service as the best practice. This means the customer interest is always first. The right response—how the customer issue is handled—is dependent on the case type. Cases like insurance policy changes, service address changes, or standard inquires can be handled in a fully automated manner either by chat- or voicebots or self-service portals. In other cases, when customers have complex issues or need to be treated as prospects—in case of subscription renewals, service upgrades, or new package offer opportunities—a seamless handover between the self-service channels, the bots, and humans still make sense to better serve the customer in the most effective way. Humans can still bring understanding, sympathy, and empathy to the conversation, resulting in a better customer experience and faster resolution.”

Personal contact is important for many companies looking to build their brands, says Fara Haron, CEO of North America, Ireland, and Southeast Asia and executive vice president of global clients at Majorel, a contact center design and services firm. Indeed, Disney, which has had voice-activated and other advanced contact help for many years, still has agents trained to be extremely friendly and upbeat and to use “have a magical day” as part of their scripts.

Rajgopal says that some situations involving healthcare, beyond confirming appointments, and in financial services, beyond finding account balances, are more sensitive and will remain in the domain of live agent help for many years to come.

Vass adds that customers using voice communications still often need to speak to a live agent with today’s technologies: “Self-service and conversational AI technologies have evolved a lot in the past years and are now able to handle millions of customer interactions without human involvement. However, voicebots still are not delivering real human-like experiences, especially in complex situations, where the company needs to understand what the customer wants to achieve, why it is important to them, and what they really intend behind the surface meaning of their words.”

Several other experts also point to the need for excellent sentiment analysis for zero-contact resolution to reach its potential.

LOOKING AHEAD

Experts agree that zero-contact resolution will continue to evolve to handle a higher percentage of customer contacts over the next few years.

“In the next years, NLU technologies and voicebots will reach zero latency and can become more contextually aware, helping us move toward human-like conversations,” Genesys’s Vass predicts. “Human-to-machine interactions will be smoother over time, but understanding emotions, taking personal responsibility, understanding feelings, and expressing sympathy may remain a challenge for a while.”

“Zero-contact resolution is a trend and a new technology that will surpass first-contact resolution,” Pangulima predicts.

The time to get ahead of that trend is now. 

Phillip Britt is a freelance writer based in the Chicago area. He can be reached at spenterprises@wowway.com.