NICE inContact, a NICE (Nasdaq: NICE) business, has announced the results of a new study, AI-Infused Contact Centers Optimize Customer Experience, the company said.
The study, conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of NICE inContact, found high interest among contact center leaders in adopting AI across the contact center. NICE inContact CXone AI capabilities span the entire customer and agent experience from: new AI self-service bot options, to new AI-infused forecasting and scheduling options to AI-powered interaction analytics that detect root cause issues of customer frustration.
Of those polled, 64 percent plan to increase their AI investment over the coming year. For example, contact center leaders see a range of opportunities for AI to enhance the agent experience. These include personalized agent and customer matching, augmenting agent capabilities to improve productivity, and support for management tasks such as workforce management.
Yet, given the wide-ranging impact of AI, how to best lay the foundation for long-term adoption can be unclear. Contact center leaders acknowledge that AI requires a strategic, concrete roadmap to minimize implementation challenges, rather than blanket investment. In fact, 77 percent agree that while AI increasingly peels off simpler customer service requests, it also increases the need for agents to develop additional skills to deal with more complex and higher-value customer inquiries.
Commissioned by NICE inContact, Forrester Consulting conducted an online survey of 307 organizations in the US, the UK, and Australia to evaluate adoption of AI in contact centers. Survey participants included decision makers in IT, customer experience, and contact centers who make contact center technology decisions. Questions provided to the participants asked about current contact center tools, plans to adopt AI in contact center applications, and challenges with getting started. Respondents were offered an incentive as a thank you for time spent on the survey. The study was conducted in March 2019.
NICE inContact is the cloud contact center software leader with the world´s #1 cloud customer experience platform.
