3 ways to improve your organisation’s customer experience with NLP

Amid health scares, lockdowns and a worldwide economic downturn, AI for CX continues to be front and centre for organisations. Odigo commissioned UK analysts Davies Hickman to interview business executives across the UK, France, Germany, Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands, to better understand their attitudes towards AI. The results indicate that 89% of European businesses are keen to adopt AI solutions to improve their customer experience (CX), with 89% of UK-based businesses attempting to do the same. Furthermore, the research reveals that organisations across sectors are particularly interested in natural language processing (NLP), one of its subfields. This article explores the widespread appeal of NLP as a way of boosting customer service operations.

1. Organisations drive revenue through NLP 

The analytical capabilities of NLP give organisations enhanced capacity in managing customer interactions. In our research, 66% of UK respondents were planning to launch NLP projects in the next two years. As its abilities to understand, study and imitate human speech increase, NLP is helping to improve CX, which, as a result, drives revenue. How? Through ‘anywhere operations,’ which enable customers to interact with a bot that knows their history and can provide personalised service rather than waiting for a human agent to be available. According to Gartner, ‘anywhere operations’ will be implemented by 40% of organisations by 2023, meaning the combination of virtual and physical customer-employee relationships will become increasingly important in shaping modern CX.

NLP improves organisations’ bottom lines through increased efficiency that saves time and resources. Our own research shows that the automatic qualification of customer interactions and smart routing are the top two NLP uses respondents in Europe are focusing on, with 65% and 61% respectively identifying these as areas of interest. The automation made possible by AI increases efficiency and drives growth, with contact centre managers able to redirect agents to complex, high-level tasks while ensuring customers continue to receive personalised support through secure, 24/7 access. These agents, augmented with AI and automation, are thus able to provide enhanced, professional customer service. 

2. Organisations increase customer engagement through NLP

NLP is the engine that drives conversational agents, or bots (chat, call, or voice), and is increasingly becoming an integral part of customer self-service. NLP enables sophisticated AI with contextual understanding, so organisations can provide customers with the convenient and personalised service they expect. Organisations understand this. However, it’s important to note that not all customers are the same. 

For example, a recent report commissioned by the CCMA the longest established contact centre industry body which has been dedicated to supporting contact centre leaders for over 25 years found that people aged 55+ are twice as likely to have a negative perception of chatbots (56%) compared with those aged 18-34 (28%).

So empathetic human agents are still vital to good CX, however, AI-driven solutions are increasingly becoming capable of understanding customers’ emotions through sentiment analysis. By identifying and analysing customer emotions, NLP-driven tools offer agents advice on next-best-actions. Not only will this make agents even more helpful to customers, it will also make the experience more personalised.

3. Organisations enhance efficiency through NLP

NLP’s role in organisations is becoming ever more important, especially in regards to data. Collecting vast amounts of customer data from multiple devices and across channels is possible, but operationalising it can be arduous. AI software, with NLP capabilities, enables organisations to upgrade systems and makes data entry and searches more efficient and reliable.

Organisations are turning to AI to improve productivity and gain clearer insights into their customers, not as a means of replacing human agents. Research from Deloitte reveals that 60% of organisations use AI to assist workers, while only 12% aim to replace them. NLP, and more broadly AI, is rightly seen as a way to augment workers to perform at higher levels.NLP presents organisations with tremendous opportunities. Forward-thinking organisations need agile contact centres, which is why successful brands are turning to Odigo, a global leader in Contact Centre as a Service (CCaaS) solutions recognised for its AI innovations. Interested in learning more about the current state of AI and its impact on CX? Check out the latest research by Davies Hickman, a leading UK-based analyst firm, to learn how organisations are using NLP and AI to improve CX, increase efficiency and drive revenue.