It’s no secret that contact centers have their fair share of challenges that make it tricky to consistently deliver excellent service.

• Inconsistent workloads. One minute, you’re bored out of your mind. The next, you’re in crisis mode. This creates an exhausting work environment that contributes to agent disengagement, burnout, and low morale.
• High absenteeism and turnover rates. Dealing with angry customers and high performance standards takes its toll on agents. It’s common for agents to take excessive sick days, arrive late, or leave their positions altogether. This further strains the remaining staff, exacerbating stress and creating a vicious cycle of burnout and turnover.
• Data overload. Contact centers generate vast amounts of data from customer interactions. But without the ability (and capacity) to properly analyze that data, teams miss out on meaningful insights, hindering their ability to make data-driven decisions that improve service quality.
• Elevated operational costs. Running a contact center is expensive. The costs for staffing, training, infrastructure, and technology quickly add up. Balancing these expenses while providing top-notch customer service is a constant challenge for contact center managers.

How AI Can Help

AI addresses these challenges and more. According to a recent survey from McKinsey & Company, 63% of respondents believe implementing AI is a “high” or “very high” priority.

Why?

As many as 64% of businesses expect AI to increase productivity. One study found that AI can improve business efficiency by up to 40% and reduce operational costs by up to 30%. That’s some serious ROI.

Here are a few ways AI can help your contact center deliver high-quality service.

• Intelligent call routing and intelligent virtual agents (IVAs) distribute workloads evenly among agents to ensure efficient peak times.
• AI-powered workforce management (WFM) solutions can predict call volumes based on historical data, allowing managers to staff appropriately and prevent burnout during periods of high activity.
• Automation tools handle routine inquiries, giving agents more time to focus on complex issues.
• Advanced analytics quickly process and analyze vast amounts of data. Then, it offers next steps.
• AI solutions improve efficiency, resulting in faster resolution times and increased customer satisfaction, which can lower the overall cost of operations.

Are you starting to see how AI is transforming contact centers?

It helps you meet the unique challenges contact centers face while enabling you to deliver fast, frictionless service.

Better service = more customer loyalty. More loyal customers = more money in the bank.

Now it’s time to get your team on board. We’ve compiled a list of 37 stats to help you build the business case for adding AI in your contact center.

AI has the power to transform your business and operations. Discover the benefits of contact center intelligence here.

AI Technologies That Are Transforming Contact Centers

Chatbots

1. Chatbots are expected to save businesses up to 2.5 billion hours of work. (Source: Juniper Research)
2. As many as 62% of consumers prefer talking to a chatbot. (Source: Tidio)
3. Up to 39% of all chats between businesses and consumers involve a chatbot. (Source: Comm100)
4. Chatbots deliver $11 billion in annual cost savings for retail, banking, and healthcare companies. (Source: Juniper Research)
5. By 2027, around 25% of organizations will rely on chatbots as their primary customer service channel. (Source: Gartner)

AI-Driven Analytics

6. Nearly 50% of business leaders use data analysis to address data quality challenges. (Source: Radixweb)
7. Machine learning (ML) delivers highly accurate analysis. In fact, ML models predicted stock market changes with a 62% accuracy rate. (Source: G2)
8. 65% of companies that plan to adopt machine learning say the technology helps improve their decision-making. (Source: G2)
9. Over 33% of IT leaders will adopt ML to improve business analytics. (Source: G2)
10. 46% of customer service workers claim AI helps analyze service data. (Source: Salesforce)

Read our recent blog to see how AI can improve your efficiency.

Automated Call Routing

11. 82% of consumers expect to solve complex problems with the help of just one person, demonstrating the importance of effective call routing. (Source: Salesforce)
12. As many as 61% of customers say IVR leads to a poor experience because of long menus, irrelevant options, and issues reaching a live agent who can truly help. (Source: Vonage)
13. Almost 70% of customers prefer self-service options over speaking to a support agent. (Source: HubSpot)
14. 73% of customers want the ability to solve product or service issues on their own. (Source: HubSpot)
15. 58% of customers want companies to understand their unique needs and expectations. (Source: Salesforce)

Sentiment Analysis and Post-Call QA

16. By 2025, almost 95% of customer interactions will be processed through sentiment analysis tools to understand customer emotions during interactions better. (Source: SG Analytics)
17. There’s a strong correlation between using tools to sense customers’ feelings and company revenue growth. (Source: Bain & Company)
18. 87% of customers view tone of voice as the most important aspect of a customer communication experience. (Source: SQM Group)
19. Automated QA increases the scale of evaluations from 1%–2% up to 100%. (Source: SQM Group)
20. Organizations that use call analytics tools (from speech analytics systems to sentiment analysis tools) can reduce average handling time by around 40%. (Source: McKinsey & Company)

The Business Impact of AI in Contact Centers

Optimized Cost Efficiency

21. Conversational AI in contact centers is predicted to lower agent labor costs by $80 billion. (Source: Gartner)
22. Businesses are seeing a 250% average ROI on their AI investments. (Source: Microsoft)
23. Current generative AI technologies have the potential to automate work activities that consume 60%–70% of employees’ time. (Source: McKinsey & Company)
24. 63% of enterprises have experienced revenue increases of up to 10% or more following AI adoption. (Source: InData Labs)
25. 28% of business leaders have found that AI helps their company cut costs. (Source: HubSpot)

Improved Customer Experience

26. 53% of customers believe AI will help companies deliver better customer service. (Source: Social Shephard)
27. 59% of managers say that blending AI with human agents has effectively boosted customer retention and lifetime value. (Source: Forrester)
28. 63% of business professionals feel that AI has helped their employees understand their customers better. (Source: HubSpot)
29. Chatbots are reported to reduce the average handle time of customer queries by an impressive 77%. (Source: Deloitte)
30. Since adding AI, executives have seen an 80% improvement in customer satisfaction, service delivery, and overall contact center performance. (Source: MIT Technology Review)

Enhanced Agent Performance

31. AI is expected to improve employee productivity by 40%. (Source: PwC)
32. According to 51% of employees, AI helps workers achieve a healthier work-life balance. (Source: SnapLogic)
33. 81% of employees believe AI improves their overall performance at work. (Source: SnapLogic)
34. A study of 5,000 customer service agents using generative AI found that issue resolution increased by 14% an hour, while time spent handling issues decreased by 9%. (Source: McKinsey & Company)

Increased Scalability and Flexibility

35. Over 80% of contact center executives have noted enhanced call volume processing using AI. (Source: MIT Technology Review)
36. Organizations pairing agents with virtual assistants handle 7.7% more simultaneous chats. (Source: Master of Code)
37. 60% of business owners predict that AI implementation will drive sales growth. (Source: Forbes)

Building the Business Case for AI in Your Contact Center

The stats don’t lie. With AI, you can give your business the competitive edge it needs to deliver superior service, drive customer loyalty, and facilitate financial growth. With AI, you can handle erratic workloads, reduce agent burnout, cut operational costs, and unlock valuable data insights.

Ready to transform your contact center with AI? Schedule a demo today!