In recent years, large organizations have been turning to Artificial Intelligence (AI) and AI-driven automation to overcome stubborn challenges at the front end of their customer service operations. The proven ability of AI-powered automation to boost contact center performance is now leading many organizations to apply it to back-office challenges as well.
Intelligent Automation is leading the way, streamlining processes across the front and back office to create high-performance synergies that yield better customer experiences.
Customer Service: The Path Ahead
Intradiem’s Forefront Executive Council met on September 23 to discuss the growing importance of back-office efficiency to customer service satisfaction. Forefront brings together forward-thinking contact center leaders from multiple industries to share best practices and thought leadership on how Intelligent Automation is revolutionizing organizations and increasing efficiencies while improving the experiences of agents and customers alike.
Front-Office Solutions
Too often contact center inefficiency and poor agent retention rates combine to produce bad customer experiences. Intelligent Automation improves operating efficiency through its ability to process massive quantities of time-sensitive data generated by call centers and take real-time action to correct productivity logjams or even prevent them from developing in the first place.
Intelligent Automation also improves agent engagement by automating repetitive microtasks and identifying unforeseen moments of opportunity—individual pockets of idle time across teams when call volume is low—for agents to engage in training, coaching and other critical development activities. Delivering critical professional development helps agents understand their value to the organization and ensures that they’re prepared to be successful under all circumstances.
Solve Back-Office Challenges
But a well-oiled front office will have only a limited impact if back-office processes are not also running at peak efficiency. A growing list of companies has seen what Intelligent Automation can do for their front-office teams; those companies are now applying it to back-office operations, and initial returns are promising.
This most recent Forefront meeting featured senior workforce planning mangers from top-tier insurance, healthcare and financial services firms who described how their organizations are using Intelligent Automation to create a single customer service framework and strong synergies between their front- and back-office operations.
The WFM leaders said their back-office teams lacked adequate performance tracking and management tools; but Intelligent Automation’s real-time monitoring and communication capabilities have enabled their teams to recognize productivity bottlenecks and take immediate corrective action by sending real-time prompts to keep staff and processes on time and on track.
In the Service of Customers
Intelligent Automation offers a unique capability to ensure that employees are consistently supported, and supervisors are consistently informed about team performance and workflow. This is true for the front office as well as the back office, and for remote employees as well as those who have returned to work on-premises. But the ultimate winner is the customer, whose issues can now be solved faster and more thoroughly than before.