AI contact centre analytics could boost Australian firms

If you're not using AI to extract insights from this vital data hub, it could soon start to cost your business very dear.

Has optimising your contact centre been a focus for your organisation in recent times? If you answered in the affirmative, you're far from alone. 

There are productivity gains aplenty to be had from improving systems and processes, and no shortage of measures by which improvements can be gauged, from average call handle time to first call resolution rate.

Even tiny changes in these metrics can add up to a sizeable efficiency uplift over the course of a year.

But, for many Australian businesses, that's where the analysis of the data amassed by their contact centres starts and ends.

Digging deeper into the data

That's unfortunate because there's no shortage of additional insights to be extracted from that extraordinary wellspring of information – insights that can drive strategic direction and growth and help businesses maintain their competitive edge.

They include, for starters, the reason why customers are calling or contacting in the first place. Leaders can make the mistake of assuming they know the answer to what sounds an obvious question but very often they're wrong. 

A deep dive into the data can reveal a variety of motivations; some of which may represent an opportunity to improve products and services, recall a faulty line or plug a gap in the market with a targeted, well priced offering.

Finding the friction points faster

Making a study of customer gripes is another exercise that's well worth doing. The average medium to large organisation will inevitably have a blind spot or several, along with more than a few friction points. 

The latter tend to crop up as unintended consequences when one team tweaks a business practice or process without thinking through the implications for their colleagues elsewhere in the enterprise. The finance department, for example, may transition to a new revenue management platform but neglect to advise their colleagues in product marketing and communications that billing periods – and therefore the figures customers will see on their bills – will be changing as a result. Cue hundreds of enquiries and countless hours of contact centre time expended on explaining and reassuring, an exercise that may not have been necessary if there'd been better collaboration at the outset.

While pain points such as this inevitably come to light in the long run, AI-powered contact centre analytics can enable them to be surfaced and addressed much faster – in hours and days, in some instances, rather than the weeks and months it might previously have taken.

The result: fewer confused and frustrated callers, less agent time wasted dealing with avoidable issues and higher customer satisfaction levels.

Seeking expert advice early on

Adopting AI-powered analytics can be a challenge, if you don't have specialists on your team who understand the technology and how it can be deployed to best effect in an omni-channel contact centre setting.

Seeking professional advice at the outset, from a specialist consultancy with expert knowledge of the contact centre market, can help you identify your requirements and goals and develop an AI analytics adoption plan to help you achieve them.

Choose to work with a partner that has a solid reputation for supporting businesses of all stripes to harness the power of analytics, AI and automation, to manage contact centre workloads and extract vital insights, and you'll be well placed to derive maximum benefit from your investment.

Strengthening your operations right across the enterprise

Once viewed as a standalone cost centre, today's modern contact centre is anything but. For forward focused businesses, it's become an extraordinary resource; a central nervous system that has the potential to generate a continual stream of valuable commercial insights. Businesses that disregard this opportunity to optimise their front and back office processes and elevate the customer experience are missing a trick. If you've yet to explore how AI-powered contact centre analytics could benefit your business, now is the time to begin your adoption journey.