How Conversational AI Can Boost India’s Customer Services Segment

The Artificially Intelligent Voice Conversations may have begun with Apple’s Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana, and Amazon’s Alexa, but they show no signs of slowing down. On the contrary, AI voice agents are all the rage right now. Indeed, as a result of the most recent advances in conversational AI, automated voice agents are becoming smarter and more adept at understanding sentiments and resolving customer queries without errors or latency. Leading industries around the world, including education, healthcare, banking, and insurance, are looking to improve their customer support functions with the right voice agents. 

As a result, it is hardly surprising that the global market for voice bots is expected to grow at a CAGR of 18.6%, according to Industry ARC estimates. Furthermore, Mordor Intelligence forecasts that the market will reach $102.29 Bn by 2026. Aside from rising demand, advancements in natural language processing, neural networks, and machine learning will be important contributors to this expansion. 

The Customer Always Comes First

The age-old business adage that every industry leader, business maverick, and disruptor swears by now has new meaning. With stiffer competition and newer challenges on the horizon, the sure-fire way for a company to rise to the top is to have unique insights into its customers’ needs, preferences, and lifestyles. As a result, businesses must adapt. And in this huge endeavour, businesses of today have found a trusted ally in artificial intelligence. The rise of technology gives businesses fool-proof methods to gain unparalleled insights into their customers and provide the support that they are looking for. 

According to a Salesforce research survey, the majority of companies (51%) are leveraging the power of artificial intelligence to hyper-personalise customer experience. AI has the potential to improve every aspect of the customer experience, from data scavenging to speech recognition and increasing response time via text or voice. 

Unrivalled Ease For Customers With AI Voice Conversations

Today’s world belongs to instant gratification. As a result, having customer support available 24 hours a day, seven days a week is critical.  However, this would put enormous strain on human agents to be available around the clock to assist customers. The lack of adequate support staff would also lengthen the wait time, exasperating customers. 

While a human agent can only handle one call at a time, an AI-powered voice agent can handle multiple calls at the same time. While some may argue that customers require human contact, this is not always the case. Another study found that 63% of customers prefer to have their questions answered over the phone. According to the study, a live chat system does not adequately address the challenges. 

Meet The One-Stop Solution

Longer wait times result in customer dissatisfaction, a negative brand image, and a lower rate of retention.  However, artificial intelligence appears to be the only solution for addressing all of the challenges and bringing new innovations to the client support domain. While AI-enabled voice agents handle the grunt work, human agents can focus on smart work. 

Companies can use smart voice agents to be available to their customers around the clock, answer any of their immediate questions, and share information without any delays or wait times. Although voice agents are a long way from replacing human agents, their introduction allows human agents to focus on the most complex and demanding queries that require their focused intention. 

According to Invesp, up to 85% of customer communication will take place without the involvement of a human representative. Furthermore, with predictive analytics and phone bot accuracy, brands can provide smart solutions to their customers while incurring no costs. The voice agent understands the tone and emotions with sentiment analysis and adjusts the response accordingly.  Furthermore, due to machine learning prowess, the system not only eliminates the possibility of errors caused by fatigue or lethargy, but it also learns on its own. 

AI Voice Agents Leading The Way Ahead

The writing on the wall is clear! Today’s ambitious brands must harness the power of artificial intelligence to effectively leverage customer-centric information and big data to create a distinguished customer experience. Customer support verticals that are equipped and empowered with the most recent advancements in artificial intelligence will have a competitive advantage in better serving their customers. 

Until now, the clear winners have been large tech companies and organisations with deeper pockets for embedding and implementing these technologies. However, new brands are emerging that will challenge the status quo.  With the advent of independent and intelligent AI voice assistants, among other things, organisations can automate customer support functions.  Since voice agents are also trained in different use cases and industries, they offer industry-agnostic solutions for today’s brands to automate customer support.

Most importantly, the advent of independent and smart AI voice agents has levelled the playing field in the industry. From a micro or small-scale business to a large-scale organisation, everyone now has access to cost-effective and efficient means of scaling up customer support functions.

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