Artificial intelligence is one of the most important resources in the contact center today. As AI algorithms and technologies become more advanced, companies across all industries are starting to experiment with smart ways to improve CX.
Today, AI solutions can automatically respond to customer inquiries, proactively engage customers early in the sales cycle, and even extract useful insights from raw data. Microsoft has become one of the leading innovators in the AI landscape in recent years by collaborating with OpenAI (the developers of ChatGPT) and developing its own gen AI assistant: Copilot.
If you use Microsoft Teams for collaboration, you may already be taking advantage of the platform’s AI-driven tools. The question is: How do you integrate AI into a Microsoft Teams contact center?
How to use AI in a Microsoft Teams Contact Center
The great thing about choosing a Microsoft Teams contact center for your CX strategy is that you not only get access to all of the latest contact center features from your provider, you can also leverage the intuitive features of the Teams platform, including its AI capabilities.
Microsoft Teams provides access to a number of intuitive tools, such as Copilot for meeting and call summarization, content creation, and agent support. You can also access a variety of AI-driven integrations in the Teams app market. There are options available for everything from business analytics to CRM extension to chatbot creation.
Paul Martin, Account Manager at Landis Technologies says: “Contact centers can significantly improve operational efficiency and customer service through the use of artificial intelligence. AI enables the creation of 24/7 self-service bots, unlocks valuable insights, and increases employee productivity.”
If you choose an innovative provider for your certified Microsoft Teams contact center, you can even unlock additional tools like sentiment analysis and intelligent routing.
Here are some of the best ways to use AI in a MSFT contact center.
Improve and optimize call forwarding
A powerful contact center for Microsoft Teams should already give you access to a range of routing configuration tools and options. These routing tools ensure that you can quickly connect customers with the agent best suited to their needs, improving satisfaction rates and reducing call transfer and handling times. But you can also further improve the routing process using AI.
AI algorithms built into your contact center provide companies with the ability to leverage “skills-based routing.” This means that instead of simply putting callers in a queue based on an agent’s availability, your system can examine each agent’s skills and competencies and match them to your customer’s needs. Intelligent call routing tools can analyze past call history, behavioral data, and even customer personas to determine the best call handling strategy.
These intuitive systems can automatically determine when to route routine queries to chatbots or send them to specific members of your team, resulting in a streamlined customer experience.
Unlock advanced analytics
Data is critical to the success of a contact center. It’s what drives companies to make smart decisions, from which service channels to use to which products to offer. Fortunately, there’s a wealth of data in every customer interaction the contact center handles.
AI can help you leverage this information and turn raw data into actionable insights that guide and empower your team. Using AI and automation, companies can quickly create reports and wallboards that provide insights into everything from call handle times to agent performance.
Additionally, innovative contact center providers for Microsoft Teams are leveraging speech analytics and natural language processing tools to unlock additional intelligence. These capabilities enable companies to assess the sentiment of each customer throughout the customer journey, identifying potential churn risks and indications of improved customer satisfaction.
Support agents with bots
As customers use self-service solutions to resolve more issues themselves, the requests agents receive are becoming more complex. A Microsoft Teams contact center can support agents, giving them instant access to useful resources and collaboration with colleagues. But AI can also help your agents in other ways.
Real-time agent support bots allow companies to provide guidance and instructions on the next action to agents, no matter where they are. Innovative tools can provide instant feedback on customer sentiment, conversation history, and more. This means any agent can access real-time coaching without having to interact directly with a manager or supervisor.
You can even use these bots to ensure that agents are following industry and internal compliance standards. For example, bots can remind agents to ask permission before recording a call or alert managers when employees disclose potentially confidential information.
Save agents time on repetitive tasks
An intuitive MSFT Teams contact center offers companies a number of ways to improve the efficiency and productivity of their agents. With the right tools, companies can use automation solutions like Microsoft Power Automate to streamline workflows. They can use Microsoft Teams auto attendants to handle and route calls with just one click.
Additionally, companies can leverage the advanced features of Microsoft Teams to save agents time on follow-up and tracking calls. AI tools built into Microsoft Teams can automatically transcribe and even translate contact center recordings. They can quickly summarize conversations and highlight key topics and action points.
Tools like Microsoft Copilot for Dynamics and Microsoft Teams can even help agents quickly create responses to customer inquiries or compose follow-up emails.
Enable self-service
Perhaps the most obvious way to leverage AI in a Microsoft Teams contact center is to provide users with self-service options. While AI agents and chatbots can’t replace human agents for every customer interaction, they’re great for quickly handling routine inquiries.
Tools like Microsoft Power Apps enable companies to create their own chatbots and automated self-service experiences for customers across a variety of channels. Additionally, various chatbots and creation tools are available through the Microsoft App Marketplace.
Self-service solutions allow you to help customers complete everyday tasks, such as placing an order, resolving an issue, or checking an account balance, giving employees more time to focus on the questions and conversations that require their unique skills.
Using AI in a MSFT Teams Contact Center
The demand for artificial intelligence in the contact center will continue to grow. With AI innovations, companies can reach new levels of efficiency and productivity and deliver compelling experiences to their audiences across numerous channels.
“There are so many concepts around AI on the market today. At Landis, our goal is to provide companies with AI tools that can be implemented today and provide immediate value to their customers,” says Paul Martin, an account executive for Landis Technologies.
With the right Microsoft Teams contact center solution, bringing the power of AI to your customer service is easier than you think. You can create chatbots, automate workflows, and even gain deep insights.
For more information, see this useful video here.
