Poor customer service is pervasive. The problem in contact centers is especially dire with long wait times and staffing issues. With customer service often being the frontline of a company’s brand and reputation, there is a lot riding on ensuring the customer experience is exemplary and reflective of the company’s mission. 

As customer service inquiries have surged over the past year and inadequate staffing has caused backlogs, Replicant surveyed 1,000 U.S. adults ages 18 and older in the United States who have interacted with customer service within the past 6 months to see how they feel about recent contact center woes, their willingness to have technology replace real people, its impact on brands, and more.

Results

Poor Customer Service is Pervasive…and the Pandemic Didn’t Help.

According to the research, 91% of consumers reported they have experienced poor customer service in the last six months. To complicate things, the research also suggests it’s not getting better, with one in three consumers saying customer service is worse than before the pandemic. Meanwhile, only 8% of consumers say their recent hold time with customer service was shorter than before the pandemic.

Thirty-two percent of respondents reported the average time they spend waiting on hold has doubled compared to before the pandemic; with half of the people waiting on hold more than 15 minutes during their most recent customer service experience.

While no industry was immune to poor customer service, the travel industry saw a significant impact on consumer behavior with 25% of travelers saying they’ve rethought future travel plans because of poor service.

The Waiting is the Hardest Part.

Thinking back over all experiences with customer service over the past six months, respondents noted long wait times, needing to re-explain issues several times and being transferred between agents as the top challenges they’ve experienced.

Additionally, waiting impacted generations differently, 5% of Boomers report long wait times for customer service, compared to 55% of Gen X, 53% Gen Z, and 48% of Millennials. 

The length of hold time matters when it comes to the emotions of customers. The research shows 44% of people report being annoyed, irritated or angry with a 5 – 15 minute wait time.

The Problem in Contact Centers is Especially Dire.

The most common form of poor customer service, according to 56% of those surveyed, was long wait times, and 70% of respondents said it’s harder to reach a real person now than it was during the beginning of the pandemic. 

Of consumers who report customer service is worse than before the pandemic, 82% blame staffing issues. Sixty-two percent of people say brands could solve their own staffing issues if they’d just pay higher wages and offer better benefits.

But Consumers Are Open to Speaking to Conversational Machines.

The survey found that consumers are open to speaking to conversational machines (an AI-powered machine that can hold a human-like conversation and respond to questions quickly and accurately in a natural-sounding voice).

Nearly 80% of consumers indicated they would speak to a machine to avoid long hold times. Moreover, 57% of consumers would speak with a conversational machine even if the hold time was only five minutes. 

Forty-four percent of people say that they are more comfortable with AI-based customer service solutions now than they were before the pandemic because they’ve become accustomed to digital interactions. 

Consumers are most favorable towards AI-based customer service solutions in the travel and retail industries but want to talk to a real person if dealing with insurance or banking.

Leveraging AI for Multiple Customer Service Scenarios.

A majority of consumers are willing to talk with a conversational machine instead of a real person when making typical customer service requests like scheduling an appointment, starting or stopping a service, or making a reservation.

And, 28% of American consumers have no hesitancy around talking with an automated system instead of a real person when making a customer service request.

Time is Money.

Seventy-four percent of consumers surveyed said they would be willing to lose $15.72 on average to avoid waiting on hold or dealing with poor customer service.

Consumer Brand Loyalty is at Risk.

Brand loyalty is at stake for many companies affected by poor customer service and conversational AI may help as the research shows that consumers are willing to speak to a machine to avoid long hold times to resolve specific issues.

Overall, brands that don’t address gaps in customer service are at risk, with 76% of consumers saying a poor customer service experience negatively impacts their perception of a brand and one in three saying it affects loyalty.

Seventy percent of consumers are irritated or angry with a hold time of more than 30 minutes. One in five consumers reported waiting on hold for at least 30 minutes during their most recent customer service experience.

AI is the Answer.

The data shows that customers are looking for better service. AI provides an opportunity to become the first line of support for overburdened contact centers to give customers quicker and more efficient customer service.

Methodology

Replicant conducted this research using an online survey prepared by Method Research and distributed by Dynata among n=1,000 US adults ages 18+ in the United States who have interacted with customer service within the past 6 months.  The sample was equally split between gender groups, with census reflective age groups and a nationally representative geographic spread of respondents. Data was collected from July 30 to August 3, 2021. 

The post Survey: The Effects of Bad Customer Service and How Brands Can Fix It appeared first on Replicant.

Fortunately, 2021 is a time for new beginnings, and we’ve been hard at work transforming the customer experience with Replicant Voice – an autonomous contact center that delivers always-on, elastic call center capacity for customer service with voice AI. 

Thanks to Replicant Voice – the  limitations of traditional contact centers are no longer here. Replicant Voice is changing the way we resolve customer issues over the phone with faster, more efficient customer service, all while turning the call center into a cost saver, not cost center. 

We can’t wait to see what the future holds and more importantly, can’t wait to partner together. Read more >

Sincerely,

Gadi Shamia

How else can contact center leaders prepare for an unpredictable 2021 and beyond? We’ve got you covered. Our newest guide is hot off the press and covers the top trends contact centers need to embrace this year in order to stay ahead of the curve. Get your copy of the guide – Shaping the Contact Center’s Future in an Unpredictable World.

1 Customer Spotlight: Scale Call Center Operations with 50% ROI

2 “Replicant Raises $27 Million To Propel Its Voice AI For Customer Service Phone Calls,” Forbes, Sep 10 2020

3 “TI50 The 50 Most Promising Startups,” The Information, Dec 2020

4 Security & Privacy

5 Customer Spotlight: Scale Call Center Operations with 50% ROI

6 Replicant’s LinkedIn Post, Dec 2020

7 Gadi Shami, Replicant CEO on Fortt Knoxx, Nov 9 2020

The post Infographic: Looking Back, Sprinting Forward – Replicant’s 2021 Forecast appeared first on Replicant.

We learned very quickly that our current call center model wasn’t prepared for the impact of COVID-19. In hindsight, we would have been more successful if we were able to dynamically scale agent capacity quickly in a safe way. But instead, we had to shut down some call centers and as a result, need to figure out new ways to leverage our existing customer service capacity to maintain high levels of customer service. 

So, going forward, what can call centers do to achieve greater flexibility during times of uncertainty?

• Invest in workforce management software and best practices: This may seem obvious, but your first line of defense is always implementing workforce management (WFM) software. WFM may not help with unplanned spikes but it can help create a solid baseline and prevent long hold times for customers. If you are understaffed due to a lack of detailed planning, your ability to deal with spikes is limited at best, which is why you need the right infrastructure in place.

• Implement a work from home contingency plan: The COVID-19 crisis is a perfect example; imagine you’re an airlines company – if there’s an increase in call volume from customers calling to cancel or reschedule their flights and your agents can’t come to work due to exposure risk, you now have more demand, less supply, and the result is tweets like this. So, before asking people to work from home, you should 1) know who can work from home and 2) set agents up for success when they do work from home by ensuring access to high-speed internet and quality hardware and software.

• Develop a Maslow’s hierarchy of needs for customer service: Just like emergency rooms triage and prioritize patients, you should plan in advance for the types of calls that are most important to your business and customers. This means preparing agents to receive the highest priority calls, and deflecting the less urgent ones. Conversational AI can help to fully resolve a variety of transactional calls so that your agents can focus on the most important issues. 

• Use Conversational AI: Conversational AI on the phone is an efficient way to resolve repetitive calls which are usually the exact types of calls you get during call spikes. For example, a food delivery company may get hundreds of “where is my order?” calls during bad weather. Or in today’s case, airline companies were getting bombarded by calls from customers asking to rebook or cancel their flights with the outbreak of COVID-19. Similarly, a utility company may get calls about power outages following a major storm. These are precisely the types of calls that conversational AI can answer with zero wait time regardless of call volume, allowing human agents to focus on more complicated cases. Conversational AI can act as your first line of defense, offering elasticity, resolving cases faster, and sending the most complex issues to your less overwhelmed customer service agents to increase customer satisfaction. 

• Prioritize self-service: Now is a great time to ask, “does this need to be a call?” In many cases, there is no symmetry between a revenue generating transaction like ordering an item or booking a flight and a cancellation like returning an item or canceling a reservation. For example, it takes one minute to set-up a password in a bank app, but it requires calling a bank to reset it. In this case, a small investment in self-service like increasing in-app functionality to handle password updates can pay off by eliminating unneeded calls for your agents.   

There is no one strategy to deal with expected and unexpected call spikes, but deploying these strategies can help provide better customer service year round so that you can weather this storm and the ones to come. Learn more at replicant.ai.

The post Prepare your Call Center for COVID-19 Recovery appeared first on Replicant.

The COVID-19 pandemic is causing myriad issues for call centers around the world, as they experience increased call volumes and reduced agent availability due to lockdowns. We’ve put our heads together at Replicant to develop a cost-effective, scalable solution – AI Voice Responder – a solution that can start answering calls in just days, eliminating wait times and managing customers’ questions regardless of agent availability.

The AI Voice Responder provides a quick and cost-effective way for businesses to better manage fluctuating call center demand. It can triage high call volumes and answer frequently asked questions to quickly resolve common support issues without live agents. It can also classify calls based on topics and urgency, enabling businesses to prioritize and respond according to specific customer issues.

The AI Voice Responder logs cases automatically in Salesforce and Zendesk so agents can prioritize follow-ups to resolve more complicated issues. Additionally, it can automate interactive outbound calls to update customers with the latest information, collect information, or reschedule appointments.Customers can effectively use AI Voice Responder across multiple industries to support their specific needs, here are a few ways as to how:

• Travel companies can triage call spikes to reduce customer hold times and enable self-service 
• Telecom companies can troubleshoot tier-1 networking issues and answer FAQs for understaffed call centers
• Gig Economy companies can manage spikes in demand with automated outbound calls for ordering and delivering
• Healthcare companies can disseminate voice-based information like clinic hours and testing site locations
• eCommerce keep customers informed on stock availability, return policies, and delivery updates
• Government agencies can give citizens the latest updates on safety information and unexpected events

One early customer is using Voice Responder to help its customers with basic hardware issues for a commercial product, replacing its offshore call center that was impacted by global lockdowns. The voice AI solution asks questions to identify the problem, provides relevant solutions via text, and creates a follow-up case if the issue is not resolved. By using Replicant as its first line of defense, agents can focus on the most urgent and complex cases first and are able to serve all their customers despite spikes in call volumes.

Call centers, and all of us, are faced with great uncertainty right now as we do our part to ‘flatten the curve’ and slow the spread of coronavirus. Voice AI can help manage businesses disruptions and ensure customers will remain customers long into the future. Learn more here. 

The post AI Voice Responders Support Call Centers During COVID-19 appeared first on Replicant.

The COVID-19 pandemic is causing myriad issues for call centers around the world, as they experience increased call volumes and reduced agent availability due to lockdowns. We’ve put our heads together at Replicant to develop a cost-effective, scalable solution – AI Voice Responder – a solution that can start answering calls in just days, eliminating wait times and managing customers’ questions regardless of agent availability.

The AI Voice Responder provides a quick and cost-effective way for businesses to better manage fluctuating call center demand. It can triage high call volumes and answer frequently asked questions to quickly resolve common support issues without live agents. It can also classify calls based on topics and urgency, enabling businesses to prioritize and respond according to specific customer issues.

The AI Voice Responder logs cases automatically in Salesforce and Zendesk so agents can prioritize follow-ups to resolve more complicated issues. Additionally, it can automate interactive outbound calls to update customers with the latest information, collect information, or reschedule appointments.Customers can effectively use AI Voice Responder across multiple industries to support their specific needs, here are a few ways as to how:

• Travel companies can triage call spikes to reduce customer hold times and enable self-service 

• Telecom companies can troubleshoot tier-1 networking issues and answer FAQs for understaffed call centers

• Gig Economy companies can manage spikes in demand with automated outbound calls for ordering and delivering

• Healthcare companies can disseminate voice-based information like clinic hours and testing site locations

• eCommerce keep customers informed on stock availability, return policies, and delivery updates

• Government agencies can give citizens the latest updates on safety information and unexpected events

One early customer is using Voice Responder to help its customers with basic hardware issues for a commercial product, replacing its offshore call center that was impacted by global lockdowns. The voice AI solution asks questions to identify the problem, provides relevant solutions via text, and creates a follow-up case if the issue is not resolved. By using Replicant as its first line of defense, agents can focus on the most urgent and complex cases first and are able to serve all their customers despite spikes in call volumes.

Call centers, and all of us, are faced with great uncertainty right now as we do our part to ‘flatten the curve’ and slow the spread of coronavirus. Voice AI can help manage businesses disruptions and ensure customers will remain customers long into the future. Learn more here. 

The post AI Voice Responder Supports Call Centers Impacted by COVID-19 appeared first on Replicant.

What is Replicant Voice?

Replicant Voice is the world’s leading conversational AI platform that makes guided self-service possible for every customer experience, starting with the phone. Replicant Voice works out-of-the-box and uses state-of-the-art technology that’s just like speaking with a human to solve tier-1 customer service issues over the phone. With Replicant Voice, it’s now possible to have easy-to-integrate, cost-effective conversations at scale to improve CSAT and agent productivity.

How does Replicant Voice transform customer service?

• Automates tier-1 customer service issues over the phone
• Provides always on, 24/7 customer service
• Gives customers consistent, on brand experiences
• Elastically scales customer service up or down
• Reduces customer service costs and agent churn

What makes Replicant Voice different from other solutions?

Replicant Voice…

• Displaces the IVR: Replicant Voice is an entirely new way to interact with your customers over the phone. It’s unlike a traditional IVR experience as it creates greater flexibility for customers and reduces friction for agents by removing rote, repetitive calls from their queue.
• Brings a new standard to conversational design: Replicant has designed a proprietary conversational interface for ingesting and augmenting your call scripts so that the tough parts of AI, like data cleansing and intent mapping, become easy. 
• Operates at human-quality speed: Replicant’s platform has made breakthroughs in latency so that it can have multi-turn conversations with little to no delay. Designed and built specifically for the phone, low-latency is a key differentiator in Replicant’s technology stack.
• Works out-of-the-box: Replicant Voice is an out-of-the-box solution, unlike other providers which require you to construct and design text-to-speech conversations using application programming interfaces (APIs).
• Makes sense of your unstructured call data: Replicant can analyze your unstructured call data to show customer disposition, most called about issues, and other key metrics to assess overall CSAT.
• Automatically captures customer information: Replicant isn’t just about voice, it’s also about text. When your customers are waiting on hold, Replicant can text them a link or send them a visual IVR form to capture customer information. This increases call containment and helps to automatically capture customer data so that agents spend less time on manual data entry. 
• Prioritizes the customer experience: Conversations with Replicants’ advanced conversational AI are fluid and natural – customers actually enjoy speaking to the “Thinking Machine” because it’s fast, accurate, and expressive.

How can I use Replicant Voice in my business?

• Retail & eCommerce companies can manage basic troubleshooting such as product issues, tracking packages, returns and exchanges
• Insurance companies can schedule claims appointments, streamline claim processing, and engage in proactive sales outreach
• Financial Services companies can manage new account registration, balance updates and loan pull-throughs
• Healthcare companies can manage prescription refills and orders
• Travel & Leisure companies can manage common guest troubleshooting and booking
• Food delivery companies can place orders using outbound calls for real-time, accurate order placing
• Subscription-based companies can oversee order management such as adding items or changing the quantity, shipping or delivery dates on existing orders
• Gig-economy companies can schedule on-boarding and verification calls or allow couriers to call 24/7 for convenient scheduling
• Pay-as-you-go companies can manage renewals and payment collection to increase retention and decrease faulty payments

How much does Replicant Voice cost?

Replicant is a subscription service with monthly billing for usage and an annual platform fee.

Is it easy to get started with Replicant Voice?

Yes, Replicant Voice works out-of-the-box and integrates with existing call center software.

Ask about Replicant’s platform, pricing, implementation, or anything else. Our knowledgeable reps are standing by, ready to help. Click here to learn more.

The post Get Smart on Replicant Voice appeared first on Replicant.

#1 Create flexible IVR systems

Typical Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems have countless shortcomings. Whether it’s customers giving up on the long list of menu items or instantly pressing zero to connect with an agent, these rigid systems are set up for frustration. Created decades ago, IVR systems attempt to direct customers to the correct agents and occasionally answer questions, but don’t always succeed. Similarly, Interactive Voice Assistants (IVA) have slightly more emotive characteristics, but can also be equally frustrating for customers. 

Replicant Voice is what we as consumers have all been waiting for – the loss of complicated menus, the ability to use full sentences to describe issues and reassuring resolutions that are contextual. Replicant’s “Thinking Machine” was developed to rise above the worn-out norms with its conversational, smart responses. Today, it is rare for a customer to have a good experience with IVR and IVA systems, and our goal is to bring quality service back to phone calls.

#2 Provide customer service that is on 24/7

Perhaps one of the biggest benefits of on-boarding voice AI is that it’s there for your customers any hour of the day or night. Leaving a voicemail or having to call back during business hours is simply icing on the cake for any stressed-out caller. With Replicant Voice, customer service is always on – allowing you to scale with technology rather than people.

This is especially valuable for businesses with a global customer base. No matter where they are in the world, each customer can have consistent service experiences 24 hours, 7 days a week. As your contact center closes for the day, you and your employees are left at peace of mind.

#3 Deploy elastic and scalable customer service

We like to describe elasticity as the power of a 1:1 caller to agent ratio, or the scalability factor of voice AI. Imagine the ability to scale customer service elastically. You no longer have to plan for seasonal fluctuations or predict demand shortages. From major holidays to peak product sales, voice AI lends each customer an on-brand experience while keeping agents from getting overloaded.

#4 Expand quickly without offshoring or partnering with a BPO

This perfect 1:1 ratio makes for easy refinement of customer service agents. The ability to keep a team of your primary agents at headquarters rather than offshoring or deploying Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) supports brand quality. It’s simple: if your team is spread across the globe, it’s harder to keep your customer service experience consistent.

If your business is booming, it’s common to partner with a third party for quick expansion. Outsourcing is an outdated solution and voice AI is an exemplary alternative to taking on extra traffic and reducing overhead costs. Voice AI allows you to know exactly what type of experience your customers are having and gives you the ability to adapt as your business prospers.

#5 Tailor customer interactions to your brand

With each call, your team leaves an impression in the minds of your customers. With voice AI, you can create a predictable, consistent service experience that your customers can trust every time. You’ll know exactly how Replicant Voice interacts with your customers and can adopt the conversation flow as needed to fit your brand. Cultivating the perfect brand experience and improving it over time with each customer interaction… we know, it almost sounds too good to be true!

You also no longer need to train agents to stay on script or retrain them as your call scripts evolve. Humans are, well, human. They go off-script, get fatigued, make mistakes and are inconsistent by nature. We believe agents should not be replaced entirely, but making the call service experience as satisfying as possible for repetitive and task-oriented calls will only benefit your company.

#6 Reduce overhead costs on FTE, training and attrition

On-boarding voice AI into your call center is not just about hiring fewer or replacing agents – it simply creates a better experience for your current team which in turn increases satisfaction and retention rates. Replicant Voice saves valuable time for trainees and agents by requiring less training for low-urgency troubleshooting and placing more emphasis on emotive, high-care customer training. In turn, this reduces attrition, agent turnover and overhead costs. If agents feel valued you’re bound to see spikes in agent job satisfaction.

#7 Increase job satisfaction for agents

Taking away mundane, repetitive calls and giving your agents time back for complex customer questions empowers agents and makes it known that their human presence and problem-solving talents are essential for your brand’s success. A core motivation of voice AI is to eliminate customer frustration. With Replicant Voice, agents know the kind of experience your customers had with the “Thinking Machine” before speaking with them. Replicant Voice can send a summary of the key issues expressed during the call to the agent, creating a more seamless pass-off so agents are prepared and customers don’t have to repeat themselves.

#8 Create multi-channel customer service with text and voice

Replicant Voice was developed to resolve issues dynamically. During a call with our “Thinking Machine”, it has the ability to ask a customer if it can send them a text. Whether this be a link, order number or other information needed to solve the problem, each interaction is automatically captured and stored as data. If a customer must be passed on to an agent, the agent can see this captured data. This multimodal approach, blending voice and text, allows for faster  customer service solutions and less repetition or re-explaining from the customer. As we all know, any customer loves a fast, efficient answer.

#9 Take a new approach to guided self-service

There’s an emerging term in the industry called “self service”, where a customer takes it upon themselves to search for a solution to their issue. It can be overwhelming to search for a company’s app, chat window, email address, phone number, etc. Replicant Voice is there to metaphorically hold the customers hand, so it quickly becomes another smart source that your customers can rely on  for their most important questions or concerns – we like to call this our “guided self-service” approach. As customers increasingly search for solutions alone, voice remains the fastest form of communication. Offering a quality call center experience creates an effective form of guided self service for your customers, strengthening loyalty and exceeding service standards.

#10 Use unstructured customer data in new ways

Replicant Voice turns customer service calls directly into data by measuring common intents and troubleshooting issues by adapting call scripts accordingly. It understands the biggest drivers behind your customer’s issues by using both structured and unstructured data.

Imagine the ability to collect data on anything from your most called-about products to the customer’s mood. With this knowledge in hand, your call scripts can be fine-tuned to solve issues and the smarter our “Thinking Machine” gets at handling your specific customers, the easier it becomes to take on greater call volumes.

What will you imagine next with Replicant Voice?

Take a moment to imagine what your brand could achieve with newfound voice AI abilities. Whether it’s wow-ing customers with consistent care, streamlining agent’s skillsets or collecting valuable data, voice AI is here at-the-ready to empower your call center.

The post 10 Ways Voice AI Empowers Contact Centers appeared first on Replicant.

You may be thinking, “but AI isn’t living, it is coded into development by humans so how could it have natural characteristics?” True, but what makes AI unique is it’s one of the most human-centric technologies of our generation. 

Unlike other technologies, AI is capable of taking on human-like qualities like language and visual perception. This has many implications that we won’t fully unpack here, but what we will begin to discuss, are the initial building blocks of AI’s personified qualities, like giving it a name or not. We’ve seen “personified AI” with devices like Amazon’s Alexa. When you need to beckon Alexa it’s easy, you just say “Alexa” and she starts thinking for you. But, Google’s Home Assistant responds to, “Hey, Google,” a command that intentionally lacks personality. They both serve similar purposes but one is named “Alexa” (a human-like name) and the other “Google” (a computer-like name). 

It’s an important question to answer, whether or not to give AI human-like names, as names set the foundation for how we treat and represent everything we interact with. Do we want AI to feel like us or do we want to create delineated boundaries as AI continues to evolve?

According to the Stanford communications professor Clifford Nass, one might argue that we should give AI female names and voices as it’s a well-established phenomenon that the human brain is developed to like female voices. This could make giving and receiving commands more amicable between humans and AI, thus leading to greater adoption of AI assistants, but it could also alienate certain users. 

At Replicant, we believe that it comes down to personal preference. Both naming approaches serve a purpose and have their benefits and drawbacks, but from our experience, referring to AI in a more literal sense helps to reduce bias and create a neutral starting point for early users.

It’s also fair to say that until we have general purpose AI, we should name AI for what it is – technology. That’s why we chose to call our conversational AI platform the “Thinking Machine”. We wanted a transparent name that implicitly highlights the underlying technology without alienating users. The “Thinking Machine” gives us an opportunity to broaden the potential of our platform by using a name that makes users think of the technology first before anything else. 

When it comes to the actual experience of using Replicant’s conversational AI platform however, we’ve taken great care to make it as human-like as possible. As stated by the World Economic Forum, “Designing human-centric AI interactions, optimized to develop trusted relationships between AI and humans, presents the largest opportunity for human and societal advancement in the modern era.”

When our users speak with Replicant Voice, we want it to feel as natural and emotive as possible. We want customer service agents to be able to rely on Replicant to handle tier-1 customer support issues so they can focus on customer service issues that require the most human qualities of all, compassion and empathy. We can only achieve this vision if the quality of Replicant Voice is exceptional. You can read more here on the principles we’ve developed to craft great human to machine conversations to clear the path for “human-centric AI interactions”.

Ultimately the decision of whether or not to name AI assistants and conversational AI platforms is up to companies and customers. Here are a few questions to evaluate and consider throughout the process: 

• Why do we need to name AI in the first place? We use names to identify one person from another and to create empathy between humans. As Dale Carnegie states in his best seller (for a few decades now!), “How to Win Friends and Influence People”, a person’s own name is the sweetest sound to their own ears. AI lacks empathy though, so unlike humans, naming AI isn’t as important by the same standards.

• How can you bring attention to the innovation behind your AI technology? When you answer the phone with an assistive machine using a greeting like, “Thanks for calling Acme, this is Amy speaking” you miss an opportunity to make your technology memorable. Amy may be a generic name whereas a name like the “Thinking Machine” evokes a sense of curiosity and implicitly highlights the technology’s capabilities. 

• How do you want your users to perceive AI? AI doesn’t possess human empathy or compassion so when you give AI a name, you increase your user’s expectation that it will act and respond with the same emotional intelligence as a human. This may set false expectations which could disappoint your users.

• How do you pick the right name when every name has an association? Sometimes a name causes us to reminisce about a friend or family member, or maybe it’s our own name so we have instant familiarity. Other names may have greater association to a particular minority group. The common denominator here is that human-like names are subjective whereas computer-like names such as the “Thinking Machine”, are objective and less bias.

In conclusion, it is up to companies and customers to decide whether or not to name their AI assistants and conversational AI platforms and there is no right or wrong answer. Your AI assistant can be called Julie, Mark or a “Thinking Machine” and it will perform exactly the same way. That said, a name sets the foundation as you consider how to guide your user’s relationship with AI-driven technology. We spend a lot of time thinking about conversational design at Replicant so we wanted to be the first to share our opinions as we continue to evolve our own best practices. 

The post Meet the “Thinking Machine”: Why We Chose Not to Personify AI at Replicant appeared first on Replicant.

The Best Customer Service Starts with Great Conversations

Before we can talk about the future of customer service, let’s define what makes great customer service. Think about the last customer service experience you had. Did you get the answers you needed quickly and efficiently? Was it engaging? Did the person on the other side understand your pain points?

At Replicant, we believe the best customer service starts with great conversations. Resolving customer service issues should feel natural and pleasant for your customers. It should feel just like a conversation; a conversation that is fast, accurate, and contextual. If you can resolve customer issues quickly, with the best possible solution in a personal way, you’re already moving towards a better customer experience.

But How do we Deliver Great Conversations?

We used to have great conversations in person with our customers. Face-to-face interactions were the de facto solution for customer service. This became harder as store fronts became digital. Companies grew and customers became global giving rise to the contact center. The contact center meant we could reach our customers globally in a personal and interactive way.  We were no longer limited by physical distance and resolving customer issues over the phone with voice opened up new opportunities. 

Voice was and still is the most natural and fastest way to communicate with customers. Voice is flexible – you can tailor the conversation to fit the needs of your customer’s issue. Voice is real-time – you can respond to customers immediately. And, voice is interactive – it’s the most personal and emotive way to connect with customers. So in hindsight, investing in robust contact centers made sense.

But, Today’s Customer Service Experience Over the Phone is Broken

If we fast forward to today, things look very different on the phone. 

It can be expensive … 

Adding call centers is costly and usually requires offshoring as the number of customers grow. 

It can be inefficient …

Customer service agents can be your biggest asset, but they’re fatigued by repetitive calls, face high turnover rates, and are expensive to train and retrain. 

It can be unsatisfactory … 

Customers suffer from long wait times and are usually transferred from one agent to another before getting their issue resolved which leads to frustration and jeopardizes your brand loyalty.

And, Customer Service over the Phone isn’t Evolving Fast Enough with Modern Technologies

With today’s technology, we can talk to devices like Amazon Alexa and Google Home Assistant. We can get driving directions, dictate text messages or play our favorite song all without lifting a finger or tapping a keyboard. Voice is rapidly emerging as the primary user interface for our daily lives, but when it comes to customer service, the closest thing we have in comparison are IVRs (Interactive Voice Response) and IVAs (Interactive Virtual Assistant).

IVR systems have been around for decades and attempt to direct customers to the right agents, sometimes offering limited self-service capabilities. Interactive Voice Assistants (IVA) are an evolution of the IVR and make it “easier” to talk to the computer as you would a person, but in practice, IVAs are often slow and frustrating for the caller. For some companies, IVRs and IVAs have improved call deflection and cost savings, but in most cases, a delightful experience has remained elusive and customers prefer in most cases to speak to a human as quickly as possible.

So, How Can we Reinvent the Customer Service Experience Using Technologies like Conversational AI?

At Replicant, we put a lot of thought into answering this question. From the onset, we’ve aimed to improve customer service by making it easier to scale great conversations with the power of modern technologies. We believe that conversational AI is the next technological advancement that will allow us to redefine customer service, which is why we built Replicant Voice for Service. 

Replicant Voice for Service is the world’s first truly self-service experience on the phone that solves tier-1 customer support issues using the power of conversational AI. Just like Agents, Replicant is able to speak with customers in a natural tone, answer questions without delay, and deflect calls to resolve customer issues quickly. 

Replicant is fast … 

It responds within a second in a pleasant, natural sounding voice just like a human would.

Replicant is accurate … 

It provides the right answers and continuously learns to become smarter over time.

Replicant is contextual … 

It’s an out-of-the-box solution that integrates with internal systems so that you can capture customer data to provide context before, during and after calls. 

Want to see it in action? Listen here.

Replicant Benefits Customers, Agents and Companies

Customers now have a single point of contact that is always on 24/7, accurate, and contextual for every customer service interaction.

Agents have a front line of defense that handles repetitive tasks to help boost productivity and job satisfaction so agents can focus on higher order service cases. 

Companies are able to offer elastic customer service while decreasing costs and increasing customer satisfaction. 

Now, customers can get answers quickly and seamlessly using the most natural interface, their voice. 

Curious to learn how Replicant Voice works? Let’s talk drop us a line.

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