Video (Part 3): Frost & Sullivan Shares Real Examples of Companies That Use AI-powered Virtual Agents

Watch Part 1 of the Video Series, or watch Part 2.

AI Self-Service Solutions Demonstrate Their Impact

The world of technology is changing rapidly and innovations abound. This is no less true in the pursuit of an improved CX, where advanced speech recognition capabilities have finally allowed contact centers to access the vast cognitive abilities that Artificial Intelligence (AI) self-service has to offer. With natural language understanding (NLU), AI-enabled voice bots can now hear, process, and correctly capture intent and context. This newly acquired accuracy means that call center virtual assistant solutions are now demonstrating their true power in a variety of interesting and beneficial ways.

Here’s how two innovative companies are using AI-powered virtual agents to automate more in their contact centers.

Instructive Examples of AI Self-Service for Contact Center Leaders

Case Study 1: Leading Healthcare Company Automates 75,000 Conversations per Month with Virtual Customer Assistant Solution

J&B Medical Supply provides medical and surgical products to patients, caregivers, health systems, clinics, and first responders.

Challenges:

• Could not achieve growth without hiring, training, and retaining live agents
• Expensive agent costs and time-consuming hiring processes
• Regulated by HIPAA, requiring a complex patient authentication process
• The traditional professional services model for automation was too costly and didn’t guarantee success

Solution:

J&B was attracted to SmartAction’s unique cloud-based model that integrated seamlessly with existing systems, required no upfront or ongoing professional services charges, and allowed them to start small by automating one call type. Starting with outbound reminders, J&B is now automating nearly two dozen additional use cases, including HIPAA compliant patient authentication.

Once the application went live, J&B received the full suite of services that come bundled with SmartAction’s simple per-minute-usage model, including ongoing customization, tuning, and enhancements to all applications for improved engagement and authentication rates over time.

The SmartAction approach offered the following advantages: 

• A comprehensive, HIPAA compliant process for automating complex patient authentication
• Replicated live agent behavior via advanced AI and natural language processing
• A roadmap for future AI automation to further enhance CX and reduce costs

Results:

• 96% of callers engage automation while 75% fully authenticate using self-service, which rivals their agents
• Accurately and consistently authenticates callers in less time than agents, decreasing patient effort by 60%
• Significantly reduces agent minutes, resulting in savings of 65%

Case Study 2: TechStyle Fashion Group Uses AI Agents for a Full-Suite of Self-Service Options

TechStyle Fashion Group is an innovative fashion e-commerce company that operates brands like JustFab, Fabletics, Fabkids, and ShoeDazzle.

Challenges:

• Subscription service created monthly volume spikes associated with billing cycle
• Expensive up-staffing during high volume times
• Innovate the CX without waiting a year for traditional professional services model to build a solution that may not even work

Solution:

TechStyle built a strong partnership with SmartAction, whose cloud-based model seamlessly integrated with their existing systems to help them automate many of the conversations their agents had previously been handling, allowing them to start small, then expand.

TechStyle first implemented a conversational AI front door to start every call with, “How can I help you today?” instead of the lengthy and archaic phone tree menu that frustrates customers. From there, if members want to check on the status of an order, manage their account, or ask a billing question—typically the most common inquiries—they remain in AI automation to complete their task. For more difficult requests, AI automation handles the up-front data gathering then passes off to a live agent to eliminate the repetitive drudgery and shorten agent handle times.

• Conversational AI Front Door with routing to AI automation or live agent
• Up-front customer data gathering to authenticate members before passing to live agent
• Automating the most common call types with live agent failover

Once TechStyle had implemented virtual agents in the voice channel, they scaled the same solution to web chat for a seamless omnichannel experience.

Results:

• Saved $1.1 million in one year (calculated using agent reduction, AHT decrease, and containment improvement)
• Member Satisfaction Scores in-line with historical averages from live agents
• 5% fewer calls to live agents
• 45 second reduction in average handle times

Seek Practical AI Self-Service Solutions

Clearly, AI has the potential to offer effective solutions to the contact center’s most vexing challenges, making it an essential part of the contact center toolkit. And while recent breakthroughs in AI research continue to lead the news, it’s important to focus on the practical solutions to business problems rather than the wonders of AI’s potential. Using these solutions as leading examples of the impact of AI automation, Frost & Sullivan recommends seeking out practical AI solutions that are cloud-enabled and easily integrate with existing contact center systems to automate one conversation at a time, rather than undertaking a complete rip-and-replace overhaul. 

Download the latest analyst report from Frost & Sullivan, “The AI-Powered Virtual Agent: Practical Realities for Contact Center Leaders,” to learn more.

Watch Part 1 of the Video Series, or watch Part 2.

Video Recap: Real Examples of Companies That Use AI-powered Virtual Agents

The world of technology is changing quickly and we’re surrounded by innovations daily. This is no less true as we chase an improved customer experience, where AI-powered virtual agents are automating the conversations that live agents used to handle before.

Take J&B Medical Supply, for example, a regional healthcare leader that was struggling with agent costs, hiring processes, and complex patient authentication, but didn’t have the budget to pay for costly professional services to automate more and sustain growth. With SmartAction’s cloud-based virtual agents, J&B has been able to achieve growth by reducing reliance on hiring and retaining live agents, while focusing on their core business.

The same happened for TechStyle Fashion Group because SmartAction is automating top drivers of inbound volume over phone and chat. TechStyle’s agents are able to zoom in on high value engagements that require judgment, upselling, or even fashion advice – things that automation can’t yet provide. TechStyle is now able to offer AI self-service in a truly omnichannel way.

AI offers effective solutions to the contact center’s most vexing challenges. But when it comes to using AI to improve the customer experience & lower costs, it’s important to consider the stories of J&B Medical Supply and TechStyle, who have used AI-powered virtual agents to provide practical solutions to customer experience-related challenges.

Video Recap: Real Examples of Companies That Use AI-powered Virtual Agents

The world of technology is changing quickly and we’re surrounded by innovations daily. This is no less true as we chase an improved customer experience, where AI-powered virtual agents are automating the conversations that live agents used to handle before.

Take J&B Medical Supply, for example, a regional healthcare leader that was struggling with agent costs, hiring processes, and complex patient authentication, but didn’t have the budget to pay for costly professional services to automate more and sustain growth. With SmartAction’s cloud-based virtual agents, J&B has been able to achieve growth by reducing reliance on hiring and retaining live agents, while focusing on their core business.

The same happened for TechStyle Fashion Group because SmartAction is automating top drivers of inbound volume over phone and chat. TechStyle’s agents are able to zoom in on high value engagements that require judgment, upselling, or even fashion advice – things that automation can’t yet provide. TechStyle is now able to offer AI self-service in a truly omnichannel way.

AI offers effective solutions to the contact center’s most vexing challenges. But when it comes to using AI to improve the customer experience & lower costs, it’s important to consider the stories of J&B Medical Supply and TechStyle, who have used AI-powered virtual agents to provide practical solutions to customer experience-related challenges.

Download the latest analyst report from Frost & Sullivan, “The AI-Powered Virtual Agent: Practical Realities for Contact Center Leaders,” to learn more.