In a society that is almost always “on”, customers’ expectations of brands are on the rise. New channels have created additional touchpoints and opportunities to engage, and consumers seek effortless support 24/7.

Nine in 10 consumers expect consistency across a business’s channels. However, 80 per cent report receiving conflicting information, commonly leading to confusion and frustration.

As customers crave rich brand experiences, siloed channels are giving way to omni-channel strategies backed by technology. Nuance Communications is focussed on helping businesses deliver world-class, differentiated customer experiences via an ever-growing array of devices and across all channels and touchpoints, powered by artificial intelligence (AI).

Read on to discover how Nuance is working with leading organisations worldwide, including 85 per cent of Fortune 100 companies and over half of the world’s largest financial institutions, to deploy intelligent systems to meet and exceed rising customer expectations.

Omni-channel engagement, powered by AI

As customers progress on their journey with a brand, they expect interactions to be seamless as they switch from website browsing to chatting with a virtual assistant and calling a contact centre. Omni-channel engagement fosters contextual journeys that do not require customers to repeat themselves at every step.

By elevating digital engagements with intelligent, automated offerings, businesses can help their customers find answers quickly, without needing to call for support. Nuance’s digital customer engagement solutions leverage decades of innovation in speech, natural language understanding and conversational AI to address unique business challenges.

With AI that can recognise human speech and language, interpret the meaning and apply context and reasoning to every customer interaction, Nuance enables secure human-like experiences and omni-channel engagements that combine assisted and self-service. Nuance has helped thousands of organisations drive customer loyalty and increase revenue while reducing the operating expenses of contact centres.

Virtual assistants with a human touch

Time-poor consumers increasingly prefer self-service—84 per cent of customers will try to find the answer to their question using a brand’s self-service application, and 44 per cent of shoppers prefer to use chatbots rather than speak with a live agent.

More businesses are deploying virtual agents that provide customers with the answers they seek, at any hour of the day. Forrester Research ranks Nuance’s virtual assistant, Nina, as number one for enterprise customer service, with Nina designed to engage customers in intelligent automated conversations with a human touch.

Nina leverages Nuance natural language understanding and machine learning to allow customers to interact in their own words, as opposed to selecting from fixed responses. Nina learns, understands and keeps up with everything customers do, delivering a consistent experience across all digital channels—from websites to SMS, mobile applications, messaging apps like Facebook Messenger, smart speakers like Amazon Echo and even the television—and can escalate interactions to a live chat agent, if required.

Government agency IP Australia’s virtual assistant Alex resolves 80 per cent of the enquiries it receives and has led to a 15 per cent reduction in calls to the contact centres—satisfying customers while reducing business costs.

Jetstar Airways, one of the largest low‑cost carrier airlines in the Asia Pacific, has partnered with Nuance since 2013 for its award-winning virtual assistant, Jess. Almost half (48 per cent) of Jetstar’s customers engage with the company through Jess across its website, mobile app and Facebook messenger—Jess engages in over 10.4 million conversations each year and triages customers to the most suitable channel to resolve their enquiry.

Prevent fraud and frustration with biometrics

With the average individual managing eleven online accounts and nine different passwords, PINs and passwords have become overwhelming for consumers. However, as fraud reaches endemic proportions, organisations must be confident their customer is who they say they are.

Businesses across the globe are implementing AI-driven biometrics security solutions like Nuance Gatekeeper to authenticate customers using just their voice, face or other biometric modalities and prevent fraud with less customer effort. Able to identify users from the way they talk, tap and text, Nuance’s technology prevented over US$2 billion in fraud and secured more than 8 billion transitions worldwide in 2019.

Enterprises that are successfully leveraging Nuance’s voice biometrics technology within the APAC region, like the Australian Tax Office, National Australia Bank (NAB) and ANZ New Zealand, are propelling biometrics towards mass adoption.

The Australian Tax Office implemented Nuance’s biometric security suite across its contact centre and mobile applications in 2014. Since over 4.2 million customers (16 per cent of all Australians) have enrolled their voiceprint, and contact centre agents have experienced a reduction of up to 48 seconds for repeat caller handle times.

NAB was Australia’s first major bank to offer Voice ID in its contact centre, and since launching in November 2019, over 120,000 customers have opted-in to biometric authentication so far. In a recent webinar, Chris Barnes, Head of Direct Channel Development at NAB, discussed how the bank has strengthened its security and improved customer experiences by spending less time on authentication and more time supporting caller needs.

Named the “undisputed market leader” in Intelligent Authentication and Voice Biometrics by Opus Research, Nuance biometrics security increases customer and contact centre agent satisfaction, all while keeping data safe.

Prefer to DIY?

Nuance Mix launched in April, providing businesses with everything they need to build, maintain and deliver engaging conversational experiences their way. The open enterprise-grade software-as-a-service tooling suite taps into decades of experience in conversational design to empower both expert and non-technical users to create natural, engaging experiences for smart speakers, chatbots, virtual assistants and more at speed.

Creating compelling conversations

Nuance Communications is the pioneer and leader in conversational AI innovations that bring intelligence to everyday work and life. Discover the latest innovations, ideas, and discussions around conversational technology and spark your business’ next customer experience success with Nuance’s digital hub for creating compelling customer conversations.