A Scottish AI and automation specialist has saved consumers 325,000 hours over two years when dealing with call centres – time that would otherwise have been spent on hold.
The figure has been calculated using data from a range of VKY Intelligent Automation’s largest customers, across a range of sectors, including energy and utilities.
The savings have been achieved using the Glasgow firm’s conversational and generative AI tools that help address consumer challenges and enquiries faster, in a more personal and empathic way.
AI assisted customer service also gives call handlers support post, during and after a call to provide a much faster, satisfactory resolution. As a result, call wait times are dramatically reduced and consumers aren’t passed unnecessarily from one department to the next.
A huge number of enquiries coming into a contact centre at any given time are straightforward to address but are often still time consuming for both the caller and contact centre, especially when received in large volume.
Stephen Coia, managing director at VKY Intelligent Automation, said: “One of the biggest challenges for a consumer contact centre is volume. Because of the number of incoming enquiries, contact centres can’t serve people in the personalised, instantaneous way that services like Netflix and Spotify can, thanks to their sophisticated and hyper personalised algorithms.
“Of course, very few organisations have access to the kind of technology and resources that global tech companies have at their disposal, but there is an increasing recognition across the board that consumer expectations are changing. This means large organisations, that are dealing with a significant volume of consumer enquiries, need to raise their game with a more empathetic, personal and efficient service. The same goes for many of the local authorities we work with.”
In addition to helping contact centre customers spend less time in queues, VKY has also saved almost 60,000 hours for public sector service users across 350,000 individual transactions over the same two-year period. This allows local authorities to deliver additional value to citizens without the need for huge additional investment at a time of unprecedented economic challenge.
Coia added: “Councils are making huge improvements in their citizen service delivery, meaning they can meet people where they are, digitally, and effectively. In both cases, it’s AI and automation that is enabling a shift towards a digital and personal customer service, at scale.”