Welcome

The Automation Challenge: How are businesses using automation and data analytics to transform customer interactions and drive efficiencies?

Sponsored by NICE
Thursday 11 November 2021
Zoom

The pandemic shifted customer interactions onto digital channels at breakneck speed, with many businesses struggling to keep up with the pace of change as their customer contact centres went virtual and employees worked from home.

And as self-service and chatbot interactions became the norm, customer expectations changed equally rapidly, with consumers now demanding 24/7 customer services support tailored to their needs. To meet this challenge, customer services agents require real-time data and granular detail on customer queries to ensure they can deliver the best experience possible.

However, the pace of adoption of automation technologies and data analytics is not moving quickly enough to meet this demand, leaving customer services staff without vital insights and resulting in frustrated customers who call when the chatbot says ‘no’ only to find that the customer services team can’t answer their query. Needless to say, the cost of this friction is counted in disgruntled online reviews and waning customer loyalty.

As a result, many businesses are stepping up their integration of robotic process automation (RPA) for manual processes in the back and front office, while AI-driven data analytics platforms are providing customer services agents with the information they need.

Improved visibility of employee workflows is also helping team leaders to establish where efficiencies could be made, how desktop assistants could support the customer services team and free up employee time for value-add customer interactions. This roundtable with senior industry peers will look at the potential of automation and AI to transform the customer services contact centre and support staff with the insights they need to improve customer experience in the digital age.


Topics for discussion

• How advanced are companies in adopting desktop analytics tools and how has the pandemic changed workflows for customer services employees?
  
  
• How are AI and automation changing workplace processes in the front and back office and spotting patterns to drive efficiencies?
  
  
• Is it now possible to automate the entire customer journey through self-service or will there always be a role for human agents?
  
  
• How are companies using new technologies to derive insights from customer interactions to improve experience and inform staff skills training? 
  
  
• How is AI changing manual processes such as scanning paper-based applications and forms, and is the technology enabling greater integration between digital and offline channels?
  
  
• What are the limits of automation in the current context, and what does the future look like for automation and analytics?

Timings:
12:30 – 12:40   Editor’s Welcome
12:40 – 14:00   Topic Discussion

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