Harnessing AI Capabilities to Deliver a Consumer-like Self-Service Experience

“The intelligence of Conversational AI and Conversational RPA brings people together without physical contact,” says Muddu Sudhakar, Co-Founder and CEO, Aisera, in an exclusive interview with EnterpriseTalk.

ET Bureau: How can enterprises deliver consumer-like self-service resolutions to their customers?

Muddu Sudhakar:

Step 1. Start with an AI-first and AI-native approach – This is mandatory and should be a top priority for businesses looking for AI solutions to “cloudify” existing IT help desk, tools, and systems in weeks, without the need for additional resources such as AI experts, clean data, or prep-work. This type of AI solution needs to be transparent and self-learning. It should be available as “out-of-the-box” solutions pre-configured with predefined workflows to automate existing IT help desks and service desks in as little time as possible.

Step 2. Give users a Conversational Experience. It’s critical to leverage Conversational AI (or AI virtual agents) to interact with users through conversations and natural language where the employees can receive services remotely through the omnichannel (voice, chat, web, email, and portal) and while they are connected to back-end tools. This bridges the gap between front office experiences and back-office workflows.

Users should be able to converse with an AI virtual agent that understands their intentions and can pull the correct content and answers. Customer service employees wouldn’t have to come into the office and customers wouldn’t have to speak to a service agent. Instead, people can be served the knowledge they need in real-time, instantly.

Also Read: Self-service Business Intelligence Tools Are a Prerequisite for Businesses in 2021

Step 3. Utilize Conversational RPA to automate existing RPA workflows to be conversationally aware and able to resolve task-oriented employee requests autonomously through omnichannel conversational dialogues. Conversational RPA has the ability to rebuild workflows and provides full automation end-to-end.

Step 4. Provide Omnichannel 24×7 Self-Service. AI-powered service desks provide the ability for users to have their problems resolved on their own time, instantly, and without any difficulties. People can continue to use any channel, any device, and be anywhere at any time.

ET Bureau: What are the challenges enterprises face with the current service desk management systems?

Muddu Sudhakar: Current service desk management systems lack automation of repetitive service desk workflows, creating long wait times to resolve user issues. Because these tasks are time-consuming, the service desk ends up being highly inefficient. This results in a poor and frustrating customer service experience.

AI helps to modernize the IT help desk and customer service desk from being a back-office tool to acting as a modern front-office asset that interfaces directly with users, understands conversations through powerful AI, and automates workflow execution across the disparate process tools and systems today.

By applying AI to these existing tools, a large majority of repetitive service desk tasks, actions and workflows can be automated so that users can auto-resolve on their own. The intelligence of Conversational AI and Conversational RPA brings people together without physical contact.

ET Bureau: What steps do you think enterprises should take to accelerate their digital transformation initiatives without disrupting their business operations?

Muddu Sudhakar: Today, employees operate IT help desks and customer service desks with manual service-oriented interactions. In cloud and AI, the service desks need to be improved and modernized.

With global work environments now remote and users accessing businesses digitally, the deficit of common service desks (IT, HR, Customer Service, etc.) has been immediately exposed. Currently, they are not capable of scale to support a large number of internal requests for IT support and external customer requests.

AI can be leveraged with the existing ticketing systems and enterprise applications that businesses are currently using, too, making integration seamless.

Also Read: How can enterprises manage data complexity with business intelligence?

AI brings users and services together in times where digital workplaces and digital commerce are mandated. This way, enterprises can ensure their business continuity across remote workers and cross-functional teams, as well as external customer support and call centers.

Remote workers and digital customers do not want to talk to an operator, and even worse, they don’t want to wait for service. AI easily solves these growing business issues.

ET Bureau: How can advanced technologies such as AI and machine learning help enterprises to elevate the self-service experience for their employees and customers?

Muddu Sudhakar: To elevate the self-service experience, have an AI solution that never sleeps. A 24/7 AI solution that is self-reliant and completely immune to environmental threats will ensure all customer service bases are covered no matter what is thrown at them.

By enabling automated decision-making, leveraging AI solutions to give users a conversational experience with conversational AI, and automating back-office workflows with Conversational RPA to bridge the gap to front office experiences, AI and machine learning can provide a self-service omnichannel to users around the clock.