The unique challenges of COVID-19 pandemic have caused a wave of technological reform across industries. Undoubtedly, customers experienced a lot of uncertainty and panic. This has affected customer service operations at large, but technology emerged as an ideal solution to curb the negative impacts.
 

In this post, we will cover how voice bots are the future of customer services in contact centres.
 

But first, we must understand that traditional voice-based channels are time-consuming, difficult to scale up and costly to maintain. Hence, the best cloud telephony solutions emerged as a powerful method of increasing efficiency, reducing costs and scaling up business operations. Once such cloud telephony solution is the AI-powered voice bots technology.
 

Gartner reported a prediction that by 2023, 25% of customer interactions will be with voice bots.
 

Let’s dive into what and why are voice bots the future of customer service.
 

What Are Voice Bots?
 

A voice bot is programmed by a computer to understand the spoken natural language using natural language processing and a voice to converse with people. This means that AI algorithms in speech recognition technology enable voice bots to identify, understand and synthesize spoken queries over the call to respond with pre-programmed resolutions using voice or text.
 

In simple terms, voice bots are computers that can speak with people.
 

Voice bots are highly scalable, offer engaging, interactive and personalized human-like customer support services in a speedy, cost-effective and organized manner. Customers can benefit from this technology by reduced waiting times, ease of access to a prompt resolution, computer generated applications and personalized services. Customer support services benefit from the reduced workload on human agents, resulting in productivity, high-value work culture and more focus on complicated customer queries.
 

Example of Voice bots use case
 

If you would like to book a flight, instead of running through multiple people for information, you can contact customer care and be greeted by a voice bot. You just have to say, “I want to book a flight to Delhi.” The voice bot will ask you for other information like date, time, Flight Company and then directly route you to the right agent. The agent has all the information and just needs to confirm your booking. This saves time, effort and resources for both you and the booking company.
 

Hence, voice bots are shaping up the future of interactive and holistic customer service operations.
 

What are the essential features of voice bots?
 

• To understand the caller intent using natural language processing
• Ability to pause, listen, and speak according to the situation
• Quick and efficient resolutions for general queries and business performance
• Personalized services like greetings, identifications, etc., based on past interactions
• Intelligent call routing to the concerned agent promptly and effectively
• Ability to keep learning using machine learning algorithms for continuous improvement
   

Since voice bots offer a streamlined and futuristic approach to business communications, more companies are leveraging this technology. This is owing to the many advantages of voice bots, being the future of customer service.
 

Advantages of Voice Bots
 

Here are some top listed benefits that make Voice bots a powerful cloud telephony solution.

1. Quick & timely customer resolutions

   Harvard Business Review research states that customers whose complaint was resolved in under 5 minutes go on to purchase more from a company.
    

   Thus, voice bots become integral to providing quick and timely resolutions to customers. Unlike traditional PBX systems, voice bots are programmed for instant responses and are available 24x7 if needed.
    

2. Highly scalable operations & reduced costs
    

   One voice bot can engage thousands of customers at once, offering personalized experiences and prompt resolutions. By reducing the workload on employees, the customer service operations are streamlined and most cost-effective.
    

3. Reduced transaction times
    

   Voice bots are known for their speed, by offering customer-friendly solutions to make payments, update information, bookings, cancellations and more. The voice bots recognizes caller intent and quickly performs a task after identification over a secure channel. Thus businesses save time on transactions and improve productivity.
    

4. Humane-centric support services
    

   While customer service operations can become mundane and repetitive, this may add to a lot of pressure on the agents who are tasked with closing tickets as fast as possible. This can affect the morale and nature of their work. When a voice bot takes over, the most strenuous tasks are taken care of, which results in better employee fulfilment and human-centric support services.
    

5. More sales opportunities
    

   Using voice bots for business communications can provide an excellent premise for sales and marketing functions. Not only does voice bot integration uphold your business credibility, but improves your client interactions. Based on past experiences, the natural language understanding and intelligent programming of voice bots can help customers make more effective purchase decisions. They can have contextual and meaningful conversations with people, by providing personalized product information, suggestions and improved top-funnel marketing. Thus voice bots for customer service increase the interactive experiences which lead to more sales.
    

Voice bots are the future of customer services
 

Especially in cloud contact centers, voice bots are being employed more and more. They indeed are the future of customer services and contact center operations. They lead to reduced costs, reduced time and improved efficiency of customer service operations.
 

Additionally, they offer personalized services to customers based on their past interactions and preferences. This generates more customer loyalty and encourages people to promote your business. With 24x7 availability, voice bots take a lot of pressure of a company’s workforce. They streamline operations with speed, accuracy and engagement. With improved call handling and a high ROI, customer services can focus on core functions while most of the customer interactions are automated with smart voice bot technology.
 

Need a voice bot?
 

If you would like a custom voice bot for your enterprise, or need to upscale your operations with improved agility, you can get the best voice bot solutions from iKnotel. We are proud of the innovation in our lab and extend the perks of this technology for you to employ. Your customer service operations will never be the same with the best voice bot solutions by iKontel.