Navigating Legacy Systems: Transforming Contact Center Experience with Generative AI

In the ever-evolving landscape of customer service, contact centers play a pivotal role in ensuring seamless communication between businesses and their clients. However, many contact center agents find themselves grappling with an unexpected adversary: complex legacy systems. These outdated technologies present a plethora of challenges that not only hinder the customer experience (CX) but also take a toll on the employee experience (EX). In this article, we delve into the challenges faced by contact center agents using such systems and explore how Generative AI is revolutionising the industry to improve both CX and EX.

The Labyrinth of Legacy Systems

Imagine this scenario: A customer contacts a company's helpline with a query, seeking a quick resolution. The contact center agent, armed with determination, attempts to assist the customer. But here's where the complexity emerges – the agent has to navigate through a maze of antiquated software, multiple screens, and disjointed databases to find the necessary information. This ordeal often leads to prolonged call durations, frustrated customers, and an increased likelihood of human error.

Legacy systems are notorious for their lack of integration, user-unfriendly interfaces, and sluggish response times. Agents frequently need to toggle between various applications to access essential customer data, wasting valuable time that could be better spent engaging with customers. This not only hampers the CX but also causes frustration for agents who are bound by rigid processes and are unable to provide efficient solutions.

This issue doesn't stop at the relationship between the Customer and the Agent. Organisations who have generally limited their budget in the Self-Service space struggle to apply improvements they have made to one or two journeys. This means that cohorts of customers, whether they are of older age, disabled or require a more personal experience due to delicate situation, get sidelined, often looping through poorly crafted automation. Automation was the fad, 10 years ago, unfortunately its legacy is still harming customers today.

In a survey conducted by Stepsize in 2021 on the State of Technical Debt in organisations, 51% of contributors (mainly Engineers) felt their company had no strategy, process or plan to manage the debt. With 65% of the debt mostly being located in the backends, exactly where the processing is done or customers that need help from the organisation they're contacting.

Additionally in the ContactBabel survey that was carried out, we can again look at what the customers say. Although not directly correlated to technical debt, "additional options" provided through old DTMF, IVR and non-natural language solutions could be classed as such.

Here we can see that over ~50% of interactions are plagued by a kind of technical (and even operational) debt. Highlighting some of the complexity that needs to be removed to improve the experience a customer receives.

The Toll on Employee Experience

The employee experience is a critical factor in maintaining a motivated and efficient workforce. Unfortunately, the challenges posed by legacy systems cast a shadow on the EX as well. Agents have to deal with a high cognitive load due to the complex navigation required, which leads to stress and burnout. Moreover, the repetitive nature of battling with these systems can leave agents feeling unfulfilled and disengaged from their roles.

Inadequate training is another challenge faced by agents. With complex legacy systems, training becomes an arduous process, leading to a steep learning curve for new hires. This results in increased training costs and longer onboarding times, adding to the company's operational burden.

The Arrival of Generative AI

Enter Generative AI – a game-changer in the contact center landscape. Generative AI, powered by advanced machine learning models, can seamlessly integrate with existing systems and simplify complex processes. It acts as a bridge between legacy systems and modern expectations of efficiency.

One of the most compelling applications of Generative AI in the contact center is the ability to generate real-time suggestions and responses. This technology can analyse customer inquiries and recommend tailored responses to agents, significantly reducing response times and ensuring consistent and accurate information delivery.

Revolutionising CX and EX

Generative AI doesn't just stop at streamlining customer interactions; it also plays a pivotal role in enhancing the employee experience. By providing agents with real-time insights and suggestions, the technology empowers them to provide quicker and more accurate solutions, boosting their confidence and job satisfaction.

The user-friendliness of Generative AI interfaces also aids in reducing training times. With intuitive interfaces that guide agents through processes, onboarding becomes faster, and agents can start contributing effectively in a shorter span of time.

In Conclusion

Legacy systems have long been a bane for contact center agents, impeding both CX and EX. However, the dawn of Generative AI offers a ray of hope. This transformative technology not only simplifies complex processes but also enhances customer experiences and reduces the stressors faced by agents. As businesses look towards the future, embracing Generative AI could well be the key to unlocking a harmonious synergy between efficient customer service and empowered agents.

Let's not skip off into the distance yet though, there are a number of challenges to embedding Generative AI, like underlying bias, safety of customer data and poor crafted prompting. On top of this, Generative AI alone won't solve legacy data silos, poorly built software interfaces or bad metrics used to paint positive pictures to executive stakeholders.

Nopaque are creating tools and products to help solve some of the issues that slow down the transformation of CX/EX. Tools for journey testing, built as-a-Service will offer better efficiency than currently available products. Mixed with our skills and experience, we aim to bring the goal of solving customer challenges on the First Point of Contact (FPoC) to life for our clients.