Conversational Service Automation Next Step For Customer Experience

A new state-of-speech-analytics report, published by Opus Research and Uniphore, reveals enterprise interest in more transformational business applications, which go beyond typical speech analytics.

The four-year tracking survey, which covered 400 decision-makers in customer experience and contact management centers, identified Conversational Service Automation (CSA) as an emerging and highly valued category of solution for enterprises.

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CSA leverages artificial intelligence to improve resolution rates while reducing handle time for customer queries, according to Uniphore. It is built into a real-time analytics platform, which already provides actionable insights for human agents.

“The voice of the customer is often lost or misunderstood, while enterprises feel the pain of running big, expensive customer service organizations,” said Umesh Sachdev, CEO and co-founder of Uniphore. “This survey confirms what we’ve been hearing from multinational organizations. They need AI and automation solutions to deliver efficiencies while also ensuring they understand their customer’s voice.”

While the implementation of AI in the backend of customer experience and contact management centers may be fast approaching, there is still an expectation from many customers that a human is available. Uniphore said that CSA does not need to be fully automated, and still can be a helpful tool for human workers, enhancing their service.

“Respondents have indicated a focus on the business benefits of Speech Analytics and adjacent technologies, with conversations emerging as the ideal model for customer engagement,” said Dan Miller, lead analyst and founder of Opus Research. “Innovative enterprises are looking beyond the basics to a new category of solutions called CSA.

“Think of CSA as RPA on customer support steroids, with implications and potential impact felt across HR, resource management, supply chain, marketing, sales, and operations. It is a unified approach to transforming the way business gets done efficiently and profitably.”

The global survey contains findings from companies in North America, Southeast Asia, and the United Kingdom. Opus Research shows year-to-year changes in the industry from 2016 to 2019, providing readers with conclusions as to why businesses have opted for new services and solutions.