Dive Brief:
- Generative AI will result in fewer call center agents taking on more complicated work, according to a Forrester report released last month. Members of these smaller teams will need a combination of emotional intelligence and technological know-how, the report found.
- Next-generation call center work will require leaders to rethink their hiring and retention strategies, according to Christina McAllister, senior analyst at Forrester. The call center of the future will need agents with relevant training and advanced skill sets, making individual workers more valuable.
- "I believe that it's no longer going to be a race to the bottom on how cheap you can get your labor," McAllister said. "There's going to need to be a focus on retention."
Dive Insight:
It’s still the early days of the generative AI revolution, but it’s as good a time as any for call center leaders to future-proof their workforce and technology strategies.
One way to prepare agents for their changing roles is investing in their artificial intelligence quotient, or AIQ, according to McAllister. Having a human in the loop can be valuable, particularly during early rollouts, but few workers understand what that really entails.
“You need to educate folks on what it means to be the human in that loop and how best to work alongside AI,” McAllister said. “When do you trust the output of an AI solution? When do you question the output of an AI solution?”
Contact centers need to ensure their knowledge management systems are up to the task of supporting these agents as well, according to McAllister.
Generative AI is only as good as the data that powers it, and the technology can’t fix a poorly maintained or outdated knowledge base. A trustworthy copilot that helps agents deliver better experiences needs clean, trustworthy data it can draw from.
However, in the past, many call centers underinvested in their knowledge management solutions, according to McAllister. Generative AI projects often receive bigger budgets, and modernizing the data backbone is a worthwhile use for this funding.
"Folks are coming face-to-face with the need for data,” McAllister said. “It’s one of the investments they need if they pursue generative AI projects. If you don't have the data from which you can generate that information or knowledge, what are you doing?”
