The term “AI initiative” is often met with curiosity, and hostility. Companies and contact centers that have tested the waters know that an AI initiative is like an iceberg – with benefits peaking above the waterline, while a mountain of painstaking work hides underneath the surface.
Time, money and additional manpower can easily be wasted on deploying the simplest ‘if-then’ AI solutions that inevitably deliver little practical value. Just like knowledge management, AI is often seen as a painful, grinding effort to set up, especially for a company that does not specialize in it.
Here at Shelf, we’re “flipping the iceberg” when it comes to AI driving demonstrably value for contact centers, and their very busy agents. That’s why we’ve created Agent Assist – an AI sidekick that provides answers agents need, and can be up and running in 72 hours, no developers needed.
What is Real-Time Agent Assist?
Agent Assist is an AI-based tool that helps turn company knowledge into answers. It enables agents to employ the full breadth of your company’s content and documentation, surfacing accurate insights and information directly where agents and customers interact. This creates a single, end-to-end contact center ecosystem with unprecedented access to company knowledge, so agents are presented with or find exact answers, all within the software they use every day.
How is implementing Shelf different?
Unlike many other AI solutions, Shelf does not require dedicated IT professionals to install it, or data scientists to train machine learning models.
Our Agent Assist technology is an out-of-the-box solution (seriously!) that can be set up in less than 72 hours. Our integration with leading contact center and ticketing solutions, like Genesys Cloud and Kustomer, means your AI customer service tool is ready on Day 1—already trained and ready to provide real-time assistance.
The result—zero lag time between purchase and ROI.
Supporting Agents Supporting Customers
Now, your knowledge is put to work by MerlinAI, our aptly named technology that actively listens to live chat interactions, and analyzes messages to derive context and provide your team direct responses or content recommendations. This is incredibly valuable because this process could otherwise take loads of time to manually locate information. And just imagine the added difficulty of being an agent-in-training.
All that time spent navigating different tools, running multiple searches, and scanning large documents for answers is virtually erased. Relevant answers find your agents, all within their usual workflow. They also have opportunities to provide quick feedback for continuous modification for higher effectiveness.
Handle the Most Complex Scenarios
That’s not all you can do with Agent Assist to increase your team’s efficiency. If your agents maneuver multi-page documentation or dense PDFs—the most logical approach would be to guide them directly to the section of relevance.
Shelf lets you incorporate complicated procedures with intelligent content guidance featuring decision-tree logic. When your agents are guided step-by-step, even a trainee will be able to resolve a complicated issue. This uniquely empowers agents and customers to work together quickly in gathering finer details and arriving at the most appropriate solution.
When All Else Fails—Search For It
Some issues might need more attention or additional context to resolve—which is exactly when processes become scattered across various tabs and systems. To battle that, Agent Assist has an embedded search powered by MerlinAI.
Your team can quickly access your entire library of knowledge and retrieve the needed info, without leaving the core contact center or ticketing system. No tab switching, no managing multiple browser windows—the full power of Shelf is available where your agents work every day.
Actual ROI Out of Your AI Investment
Customer service AI initiatives are among the hardest to achieve a positive return on investment. It doesn’t necessarily add to your brand or reputation, yet it must have a powerful impact visible to your customers—or else it’s an incredible waste of time and resources.
Agent Assist will help you make that noticeable difference. When your front line agents are able to provide correct answers—with greater consistency and in less time—everyone is freed up to do more. Your Tier 1 agents scale while your senior call center personnel can focus more energy on key initiatives. This creates a more efficient and effective operation, which ultimately translates into larger quantities of satisfied customers, and greater profitability for your support operation.
And while every company’s needs and priorities are different—there are specific metrics that can be easily measured and translated into actual dollars. Download Shelf’s short guide on how to measure ROI of a knowledge management initiative in a contact center.
