While many headlines in the technology and business press mention AI (artificial intelligence), usually in the context of deployments in new rafts of software and cutting-edge applications, the technology has not had a meaningful impact in every area of business.

One exception to this rule is in customer care, where many companies are now using the power of the IBM Watson AI engine to increase customer satisfaction levels by exploiting what the Watson AI technology excels at: processing human speech, AI-powered intelligent search routines, and cognitive, impactful responses to common queries.

The power of artificial intelligence in Watson Agent Assist, for example, allows the Watson algorithms to search multiple systems and documents throughout the company, to find the answers that are being asked, on even a massive scale.

In interactions with human agents, delays as answers are sought not only frustrate customers, but also lead to a high turnover of staff. By automating repetitive tasks and quickly gathering the data that provides insightful and highly personalized responses, organizations increase the efficiency of their customer care agents but also cut the amount of time customers spend waiting. Customer satisfaction levels, therefore, rise in direct correspondence with the fall in business overheads in the customer care center.

Taken one step further forward, AI is leveraged in the form of Customer Care Virtual Agents from IBM, also powered by Watson. With this cutting-edge technology, Watson responds to standard queries (short-tail questions) with insights that can be surfaced by Agent Assist. Responses get presented back to customers at speeds only technology is capable of.

At any stage, the customer can ask for a referral to a human agent for resolution of more complex issues, and Watson notifies the right agent, at the right time, down the right channel to effect a maximum turnaround of the problem. The ability to create an immediate escalation is one of Watson’s capabilities that customer care providers all over the world have benefited from.

Companies that are household names like the Royal Bank of Scotland and Fukoku are now able to process many thousands of customer queries per hour that otherwise would have cost each valuable human resources; resources which are better deployed resolving the more knotty problems that are not addressable by even the most intelligent AI-powered routines.

In Customer Care departments, the trend that’s sweeping the sector is the preference for many interactions to take place between customers and automated systems, right around the clock, 365 days a year. For standard queries, especially among demographics more attuned to technology, attention from automated systems is not only accepted, but preferred.

Until now, however, such interactions have been basic, and systems have not been able to respond to context. But with AI powered by Watson’s Customer Care Voice Agent, voice queries and statements from customers are translated into text for processing by the machine-learning routines. Spoken queries and requests can be interpreted on the fly, rather than having to conform to strictures laid out in software.

With the power of AI, companies’ automated systems, such as chatbots, interact with callers using natural language processing, creating full self-service interactions over the phone. Even tangential statements made during interactions (humans do tend to go off script) can be handled by the Watson processing engine, reducing the need for human agent intervention and helping customers in the way they want.

In today’s customer care environments, the need for immediate, personalized services means it’s difficult for traditional working methods to scale out. But with Watson AI at the heart of your care division, the future of customer relations is in safe hands. To learn more about the future of customer care with Watson AI from IBM, get in touch with a representative today.