Why voice AI is crucial for handling holiday peaks

Holiday peaks can be stressful to employees, who need to handle more tasks than usual, and to customers, who can face delays in getting their queries answered. It is high time you invest in an AI tool to assist you in your retail business and help make your holidays worry-free.

Voice AI is the ideal solution to customer service problems, especially during rush hours, holidays, and events like Black Friday sales. It can help reduce the pressure on the staff by dealing with part of the workload, leaving only the more intense queries to human agents.

Speech and conversation are a way to get the listener's full attention. Voice AI allows customers to get answers from both ends in real-time, increasing engagement and improving the customer experience.

Identifying the Best Solution

Talking is the natural way to communicate with people. Voice AI is a simple way for anyone of any age to communicate, find relevant information, and perform specific tasks.

Retail call center specialists can benefit from artificial intelligence solutions that improve customer interactions. So how do you choose the right solution? Speed is the most critical factor when searching for an AI-based solution for brands. A solution must be able to process and transcribe the human voice at the same speed as a face-to-face conversation.

Agents and managers can access real-time feedback from customers via artificial intelligence. They can also customize scripts for each customer call. Doing this allows for correct messaging to be used for every customer in any situation.

In addition, these messages can help seasonal employees remember the brand tone and voice, in turn keeping customers happy during the holiday peak.

The way artificial intelligence processes language, called natural language processing (NLP), is able to gather information and identify patterns. This quality allows the most efficient AI voice systems to expand their areas of expertise and give faster responses to customers.

These patterns, when reviewed, can also help employees and managers better understand their clients and the solutions they may need.

Customize Customer Interactions To Your Brand

Every call a customer makes leaves a lasting impression on them. Voice AI makes it easy to provide consistent, reliable service that customers can rely on every time.

A traditional automated call answering machine (called interactive voice response, or IVR) will prompt the caller to press a number. This step will usually repeat a few times for simple tasks like making a payment with a credit card. Alternatively, the caller can sometimes push a number and be redirected to a human agent.

Sometimes, this process not only feels impersonal to the client, but it doesn’t provide the answers that they need, making it tedious and potentially disappointing. They may also get different information from different departments if they are redirected numerous times.

Voice AI eliminates these problems. The caller can simply speak their query as they would with a human employee, without having to guess which number they should press to get the answer. The voice AI will examine the query and answer. It also quickly identifies which requests will need a human agent and redirect the customer immediately, saving time for both the customer and the agent, who already knows what the caller needs.

The interaction with customers will be apparent, and you can adjust the conversation flow to suit your brand. It's almost impossible to believe that you can create the perfect brand experience by improving it with every customer interaction.

AI voice assistants shouldn't entirely replace agents, but ensuring an excellent call service experience will benefit the company. Your clients will appreciate the consistency with which you handle their queries.

Uncover Issues as They Come Up to Manage Them Efficiently

Customers are more likely to pick up the line when digital alternatives fail. Voice AI assistants track conversations and can access them on live dashboards, allowing managers to spot a trend in calls related to specific topics.

Consequently, managers can teach the AI assistant new or improved answers. They can ensure the team of human agents is prepared to quickly handle the queries that may need their assistance, too.

These trends can help discover issues that would have taken longer to identify otherwise. For example, if orders that were shipped on a certain date are suffering delays, or if a product description seems to be inaccurate on your website.

Excellent Self-service During Holiday Rush

During holiday rush hour, customers must wait in a queue to get assistance from an agent. Most people find even a minute of waiting time too much and don’t want to be on hold at all. Customers expect quick responses and prompt solutions.

With IVR, the waiting time can increase because the customer may press the wrong number, or a specific department may be getting too many calls. Customers can get frustrated, and employees can feel stressed or pressured.

Conversational AI can provide that customer service throughout the rush season. You don't need to increase the number of agents in your support team to handle the surge. Voice AI can answer questions accurately, including stock inquiries, delivery time frames, Black Friday discount prices, and others.

Additionally, an AI voice assistant can be available 24 hours, seven days a week. No matter what time a customer calls, they will get the answer they need.

Conclusion

Voice AI allows you to scale up without being restricted by capital or labor costs, which greatly increases productivity and sales while reducing capital and labor costs. In addition, ordering support via automation makes customer care much more accessible from the very beginning.

Because of the ordering process optimization, team members can focus on customers' needs instead of being distracted by the headset. As a result, both can work together to deliver high-quality customer experiences while lowering operational costs.

If you would like to include Voice AI into your customer service operations, consider a UCaaS solution or Online Smart Office Assistant (OSOA). Visit our website and request a demo.