The recently concluded CCW Asia Online was a notable event attended by business leaders and decision-makers of the customer service industry worldwide. As part of the virtual event, Uniphore, a leader in Conversational Service Automation, partnered with WNS, a global Business Process Management (BPM) major, for an insightful fireside chat. Uniphore’s Co-founder Ravi Saraogi and WNS’ Head of Customer Interaction Services, Jitender Mohan joined the event for a fireside chat moderated by Georgina Wilczek on the topic Transforming Your CX Operations Today by Harnessing the Power of AI, ML, and Intelligent Automation.
The exchange of ideas between the two thought leaders brought some crucial topics to the fore. The discussion commenced with how the world entered uncharted territories with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Ravi familiarized the audience with the importance of conversational AI, digital transformation, and the inevitability of remote contact centers and highlighted Uniphore’s recent survey on customer experience. He explained that most customers still prefer human interactions over chatbots or IVRs and touched upon the frustration of customers who were put on hold, leading to lost opportunities for businesses. This insight was an eye-opener for the customer service industry to innovate and resolve the issue.
Jitender began his discussion by talking about the digital transformation journey at WNS. He pointed out that all stakeholders at WNS unanimously agreed to implement digital transformation early on, using technologies like AI and automation. According to Jitender, this is one of the key reasons why WNS was able to successfully deliver on customer service promises during the height of the pandemic fanning across the globe.
Georgina asked some pertinent questions about how customers were coping with COVID-19 and its impact on the customer service industry. Ravi answered by citing that the pandemic did bring about spikes in contact center call volumes due to customers’ inability to venture out of their homes, further exacerbated by some customer service representatives failure to log-in to work due to infrastructure issues. He added that this led to massive call wait times, eventually leading to distraught customers. Ravi then talked about the solution to this issue by highlighting how conversational AI platforms like Conversational Service Automation can help mitigate disasters and offer a seamless customer service experience.
The discussion then moved towards the current state of affairs in the customer service industry. Jitender spoke about the fact that gone are the days of one-size-fits-all. He said, “Today it is all about personalization. Customers want to interact with a brand through multiple touchpoints – be it social, web chat, or good old telephone. It is incumbent upon brands to offer a consistent customer service experience regardless of the channels that the customers prefer to interact with a brand. Automation and conversational AI play a vital role in ensuring a great agent experience and customer experience alike”. He also added, “Conversational AI helped solve customer service problems and brought innovative ways of delivering business growth at WNS”.
This insightful chat between the two industry leaders moved towards the topic of how humans and machines can complement each other and work towards a common goal of customer service excellence. Ravi deliberated on how AI and automation will create net new jobs rather than render people jobless. Jitender touched upon the need for organizations to be nimbler in the future to fully understand the nature of changing customer needs and staying in sync with these dynamics. Both leaders agreed that conversational AI can help businesses cut down on costs, stay agile, anticipate customer needs, and ultimately fulfill these needs to the sheer delight of customers.
The thought-provoking fireside chat concluded with Ravi and Jitender agreeing that today’s conversational AI and adjacent technologies have reached an inflection point, and customers are becoming more demanding. A key takeaway from the chat was that brands need to implement new-age technologies and fulfill changing customer expectations.
You can watch the entire on-demand webinar of the fireside chat between Ravi and Jitender, now!
