Jack is a 30-year-old customer service agent at a call centre based in Manila. In this job, he helps his clients find new customers and facilitate the onboarding process; and troubleshoots problems for existing ones as well.

Every day, millions of call centre professionals based in Asia Pacific like Jack play a crucial role in keeping the global economy running, ensuring the smooth operations of businesses by keeping their customers satisfied.

Indeed, according to an Accenture study, 58% of customers globally prefer to solve urgent issues through calls rather than other channels. Little wonder, then, that even in this age of digitisation, over 85% of businesses globally still use dedicated customer support teams in call centres as part of their customer engagement strategy.

Jack enjoys the sense of satisfaction that comes with helping a customer solve a persistent problem, and educating prospective customers about a product that makes their lives better.

But his job is not without challenges. In the ten years he’s worked as a customer service agent, he’s seen a fair share of his colleagues leave the industry altogether – part of the 22% industry attrition rate in the region’s  – owing to a variety of reasons, ranging from the frustration associated with the mundane nature of the job, to overwork and the lack of career growth.

In fact, Jack himself was about to call it quits – until his employers implemented various Voice AI solutions from AI Rudder, ahead of the Christmas shopping season. While he was initially skeptical about parts of his job being automated, Jack soon learned that this automation would keep him engaged, by allowing him to focus on the most fulfilling parts of his job. The impact of these Voice AI assistants was immediate. Immediately, the AI Voice assistant reduced the need for a hiring frenzy.

Read on to find out how Voice AI made Jack more engaged in his job and empowered him to become a savvier telemarketer and negotiator, a more empathetic relationship manager, and ultimately add value to his customers and clients.

In telemarketing
Businesses engage Jack’s company for telemarketing services, to raise awareness about new products, services, and other offerings to existing customers or potential new ones.

Before Voice AI came into the picture, Jack would often find himself having to make repeated cold calls, only to face rejection within seconds – it was demoralising.

With AI Rudder’s telemarketing solutions, however, Jack found himself only having to deal with customers who had already had an interest in purchasing his client’s products and solutions, letting him hone his skills as a persuasive negotiator, and growing his ambitions of one day working in a sales role! Most importantly, his commissions increased as a result of this arrangement, without time wasted on cold calls that ended in rejections.

With Voice AI able to capture and transcribe his conversations with customers, Jack was able to work with his company’s trainer to identify areas in which he could improve his telemarketing methods, and ultimately drive more sales for future calls.

Delivery of important messages, information verification, and KYC processes
Before Voice AI, Jack had always regarded these tasks as a necessary evil.

Businesses needed to contact their customers to inform them about order validation or incoming delivery, or when an unexpected situation crops up. For example, if a customer subscribes to certain services that become temporarily unavailable, the service provider needs to notify those customers sooner rather than later to avoid potential dissatisfaction.

In addition, businesses such as restaurants, beauty salons, and hospitals need to contact their customers for appointment reminders, which tend to be routine by nature but large in volume. In this case, optimal performance depends on factors like timeliness, scalability, and automation.

Meanwhile, when new customers sign up for certain services, businesses must collect relevant personal information for better customer service and regulatory compliance. These KYC processes can be lengthy and complicated, with some customers abandoning signup mid-way. However, a well-designed process and an effective guidance mechanism for customers can minimise the turnover rate and customer acquisition costs.

While these were important business processes, for Jack and his colleagues these tasks were routine and monotonous – and added little value to their professional development.

With AI Rudder, most of these routine processes became almost fully automated. It was a win-win situation – businesses could respond to unforeseen events and react almost instantaneously, while Jack could focus on the tasks that brought more value to the company.

Inbound customer care
This refers to a broad category comprising a wide variety of customer interactions, including information enquiry, services signup, and customer feedback. Businesses and their customer service teams need to differentiate and understand their customers’ demands when an inbound contact is initiated by the customer.

Before Voice AI, Jack and his colleagues found themselves having to handle a wide diversity of customer demands, while maintaining a high availability while handling a high load of customer calls. This was an exhausting process, especially for clients with a diverse range of products and solutions.

With AI Rudder, Voice AI did the magic of categorising inbound calls into different categories. Jack and his colleagues showed up at work with allocated areas they would be troubleshooting for the day, letting them anticipate exactly what types of problems their customers would be facing, and direct them to the most relevant resources quickly. This way, they were not only able to save time finding the right resources to solve the customer’s problems but were also able to grasp a more in-depth understanding of different functions and products.