Importance of conversational AI in contact centers

WITH the Philippines becoming Southeast Asia's fastest-growing digital market, contact centers are challenged to accelerate efforts in building better experiences for digital customers. In a Zoom call with Mr. Ravi Soarogi, co-founder and president of Uniphore Asia-Pacific, I got introduced to how their conversational artificial intelligence (AI) solutions could help contact centers become more empowered, productive, and deliver better customer service while working within the constraints of the pandemic. But first, what is conversational AI?

The website, iotforall.com defines conversational AI "as a set of technologies that enable computers to simulate real conversations." It further adds that "true conversational AI chatbots go far beyond the bots to which you've grown accustomed. They help businesses engage deeply with customers." Conversational AI is more inclusive of all the technology that falls under the bot umbrella, like voice bots and voice and text assistants, while "chatbots" have a more limited "text-only" connotation. To understand conversational AI, Soarogi breaks down the conversations in large enterprises. If you look at large enterprises, there are multiple different systems and back-end systems working together in tandem to manage information flow, information storage within that enterprise. One could talk about backend earpiece systems, finance systems, employee management systems, marketing tools and more. Today, what really drives an organization is a conversation that could happen between two employees, or it could happen between the organization and its vendors or partners. They then convert conversations into some form or data, which goes back into the earpiece systems, human resource systems, or the customer relationship management systems, Soarogi added.