Nuance Communications has launched a voice-to-agent messaging tool, an AI solution that eliminates the need to put customers on hold.
This solution is designed to enable contact centre agents to continue servicing customers as usual no matter where they are currently based – whilst maintaining high levels of customer experience and ensuring both safety and security.
The unprecedented COVID-19 crisis has changed the business landscape forever, forcing organisations across the globe to establish and support remote working practices. Contact centres are no different, with many having to alter their operations to support employees working from home.
However, despite this disruption, things haven’t slowed down. In fact, in recent weeks those working in contact centres across financial services, healthcare, airlines and retail have faced a surge of callers and the demand for high levels customer service and seamless transactions has skyrocketed. The result is often long wait times for customers and increased pressure for agents.
Voice-to-Agent uses conversational AI to automatically convert the customer voice message into text, then uses natural language understanding to understand the customer request and route to the best agent or agent pool. Nuance’s AI can also provide agents with proposed answers and automatically send an SMS to the customer with a personalised response.
As reported in recent weeks, COVID-19 has pushed organisations around the globe to establish remote contact centres and enable their agents to continue servicing customers while maintaining safety and security. In parallel, especially in certain industries like financial services, healthcare, airlines, retail and telecommunications, the demand for customer service is skyrocketing. The result is often long wait times for customers and agents tasked with effectively answering mounting customer calls. At the same time, organisations are accelerating their Digital Transformation strategies and increasing digital interactions with customers.
The new Voice-to-Agent messaging addition to Nuance’s IVR-to-Digital solution suite are first of a kind and allow customers to quickly voice their need or concern so organisations can move interactions to digital channels where automation and asynchronous conversations are often more impactful. The new enhancement can transcribe voice-to-text in real time, getting virtual assistants and/or live agents all the relevant information about a given customer before they contact that individual. Therefore, when an agent engages the customer, they are able to have shorter more concise conversations. As a result, live agents and virtual assistants can effectively serve more customers on the channel that best fits their requests.
“In any situation where an organisation is facing a surge in callers, the ability to quickly understand the call context removes the heavy burden on call centre agents and makes for a better customer experience. Instead of waiting on hold, they can simply leave a voice message and get their question answered via an SMS chat,” said Tony Lorentzen, General Manager and Head of the Intelligent Engagement business at Nuance. “Because our platform is unified, not only is it easy for customers to solve for high-demand times, but it also brings channels together in a controlled way that can simultaneously accelerate digital-first strategies and future plans.”
For more information on Nuance’s Intelligent Engagement platform go here
