Imagine a contact center as a ship navigating through the unpredictable seas of customer interactions. The agents are the crew, diligently working to keep everything running smoothly. Supervisors, in this metaphor, are the captains of the ship. Their role is to oversee the crew, ensure the ship stays on course, and make strategic decisions that lead to a successful voyage. The captain, or supervisor, can't manage everything alone. Typically, the captain relies on a first mate to ensure the crew stays in line, understands their tasks, and is equipped to perform them. Without this key crew member, disaster can strike.
In today’s digital age, artificial intelligence (AI) technologies are evolving at an unprecedented pace, transforming work across various sectors. The contact center is one area that stands to benefit immensely from these advancements. Human agents here are tasked with answering hundreds to thousands of customer queries daily. Virtual agents have been introduced to alleviate this burden, handling low-priority or less-challenging queries.
Now, a new era has dawned with the advent of CX AI copilots—intelligent assistants powered by conversational AI and generative AI. These copilots are set to revolutionize contact centers by providing real-time guidance, coaching and feedback to human agents and their supervisors. This support leads to faster resolution times and increased customer satisfaction, making copilots the ultimate first mate for supervisors in the modern customer service landscape.
The age of enterprise AI
AI is revolutionizing the enterprise landscape in ways never seen before. Initially, AI's contributions were confined to predictive analytics. However, over the last two years, the field has experienced explosive growth, evolving to generate content and facilitate naturalistic interfaces for communication with virtual agents. This technological revolution, spearheaded by generative AI and large language models like ChatGPT, has captivated business leaders eager to harness these capabilities as a form of digital labor.
The evolving role of supervisors in contact centers
AI has impacted every facet of the workplace, including our personal lives and its underlying technologies will continue to evolve. The full impact is yet to be seen, but the contact center is arguably the most crucial use case for businesses. Customer experience (CX) has now become strategic for businesses, and AI offers numerous applications to help contact centers better understand and support their customers. While AI deployments have largely been customer-centric, capturing new data streams to provide deeper insights into customer habits, preferences and sentiments, the role of supervisors in this equation is often overlooked.
Supervisors oversee agents and have evolved with changing technologies and post-pandemic work styles. Without the sights and sounds from everyday operations, supervisors have less to go on to properly support agents. These human elements are the intangibles that make for effective supervisors, and they go well beyond high-level coaching when agents face challenging situations. Aside from the practical elements of helping agents with customer interactions, supervisors can be motivators, making agents feel good about their work by recognizing top performers and bestowing various forms of rewards for jobs well done.
The need for copilots: A supervisor’s perspective
Today, supervisors must rely more on digital technologies to manage virtual pools of agents they may never meet. Turnover rates remain high among agents—a major pain point for contact centers—making it even harder for supervisors to bond with agents, foster career development, inspire them, and lead them. For agents, the demands only increase as today's technology brings expectations for handling more calls and resolving issues faster. Working in isolation, agents don’t have other agents or supervisors to turn to in the moment, leading to a less effective CX.
For supervisors to truly be effective—and satisfied in their work—their role must further evolve, especially with today’s digital technologies and the growing impact of AI. Not only are the demands on supervisors changing, but their role in CX is becoming better understood. Contact center leaders are recognizing the direct relationship between agent experience (AX) and CX; when agents are properly supported, they’ll do a better job driving CX. This goes beyond traditional KPIs, as supervisors are a vital link in the chain for improving CX, and when they can better support their agents, customers will get better outcomes.
The benefits of CX AI copilots
Enhancing agent support
Copilots can act as a source of truth for the entire team, prompting agents with real-time resources, information, and knowledge. Supervisors can trust that agents receive accurate, up-to-date information to help customers. Additionally, copilots can analyze support interactions, identifying areas where agents excel or need improvement. This insight allows supervisors to accurately assess performance and provide targeted recommendations for improvement.
Real-time coaching and feedback
Supervisors can leverage copilots to provide real-time guidance and coaching to agents. Copilots can correct unideal responses and behaviors before they occur, ensuring that agents handle interactions more effectively. This proactive approach helps supervisors manage teams more efficiently, especially in remote or hybrid work environments.
Streamlining Onboarding and Training
Onboarding and training new agents can be challenging, especially with high turnover rates. Copilots provide continuous support to new agents, helping them get up to speed faster and avoid critical mistakes. This digital coaching ensures that even when a human supervisor is unavailable, agents still have the guidance they need.
Reducing supervisor stress
AI isn't just about helping supervisors support agents better; it's also about making their own jobs more manageable. By offloading routine tasks and providing critical insights, copilots free up supervisors to focus on more strategic aspects of their role. This balance allows supervisors to support agents in a more human-centric manner and play a more significant role in enhancing CX’s impact on the business.
Building a stronger business case for AI
When making a business case for AI in the contact center, it's essential to consider the role of supervisors in improving AX and driving better CX. Including supervisors in the model strengthens the business case for AI, showing how these technologies can enhance overall contact center performance. Technology can be more than automation and efficiencies; it can empower supervisors to elevate agent performance and improve customer outcomes.
Enlighten Copilot for Supervisors
But not all are created equal when it comes to CX AI copilots. Many will claim these benefits but fail to deliver on the massive expectations that brands have for these solutions.
Built for CX from the start, Enlighten Copilot for Supervisors stands out as the clear choice, offering a host of competitive advantages that contribute to the success of your organization.
Built on world-class AI models
Enlighten Copilot leverages the power of world-class AI, utilizing the largest validated dataset of customer interactions to ensure our AI models are exceptional. Our commitment to using cutting-edge technology keeps us at the forefront of AI innovation, all aimed at enhancing your customer experience.
Comprehensive interactions platform
Enlighten Copilot provides a comprehensive platform that seamlessly integrates with various data sources, including ACD, WFM, QM, IA, metadata, and third-party applications. This robust integration allows us to leverage data to drive excellence. Our platform is designed to grow with your needs, ensuring you can confidently adapt to the evolving landscape of customer interactions.
Most trusted guardrails
We place a high priority on knowledge management as a key component of AI management. Enlighten Copilot ensures that AI-generated answers are consistently relevant, accurate, and aligned with your brand. Powered by the Enlighten vector database, robust information architecture, and CXone Expert or other third-party knowledge management systems, you can trust in the quality and consistency of every interaction. Our commitment to maintaining high standards ensures your organization delivers a customer experience that exceeds expectations.
What makes Enlighten Copilot for Supervisors different?
AI-driven monitoring
Enlighten Copilot offers deep insights into critical issues, helping you understand them better and faster. With enriched data analysis, you get detailed summaries, reasons, and background information, empowering supervisors to make informed decisions and provide targeted assistance to agents. This comprehensive understanding equips supervisors to tackle specific challenges efficiently, creating a supportive and responsive contact center environment for both agents and customers.
Supervisor assistant
Enlighten Copilot acts as a guiding hand during monitoring sessions, offering targeted coaching recommendations to supervisors. This feature enhances the effectiveness of supervisor input and drives continuous improvement in agent performance. By providing actionable insights, supervisors can tailor their guidance to address specific areas of improvement, resulting in a more skilled and empowered agent workforce.
Alert insights
Enlighten Copilot serves as an intelligent assistant by uncovering trends, patterns, and risks related to team-tracked KPIs over time. Through proactive, conversational data requests, supervisors gain valuable insights into their team’s performance metrics. This capability boosts overall contact center performance and contributes to a more responsive and customer-centric approach, ensuring potential issues are addressed before they escalate.
The contact center is evolving with the advent of artificial intelligence. Copilots, the next generation of intelligent assistants, will transform how supervisors support their teams, enhancing performance and customer satisfaction. By recognizing the critical role of supervisors in the CX equation and leveraging Enlighten Copilot for Supervisors, enterprises can create a more productive and engaging work environment.
Supervisors are like the captains of a ship, guiding their crew through the turbulent waters of customer interactions. With Enlighten Copilot as their advanced navigational tool, they can steer their teams more effectively, ensuring a smooth and successful journey. It's time to embrace the AI revolution and unlock the full potential of your contact center. Welcome to the era of copilots. Are you ready to transform your contact center?
