Debunking 5 Conversational AI Myths

Search any topic on the internet, and you’re going to experience two outcomes: truth and misinformation. Nowadays, it’s hard to decipher which is which as we experience inundation from sources left and right in a 24/7 news cycle that doesn’t take a rest day.

Conversational AI is a topic that gets fuzzy with the overselling of promises and icky misconceptions, deterring those looking for ways to transform their call centers as they’re led down a crooked path.

We get it — it’s hard to determine what’s accurate and what’s a falsehood. That’s where SmartAction comes in. We’re your legioned soldiers in the battle against sophisms. It’s time to expose the myths for what they are and set those forging a trail towards automating their contact center up for success.

Myth #1: Customers don’t use the phone for customer service anymore

Customer service can come in many different forms, thanks to our modernized world: email, online chat, social media, in-person, text. The oldest – phone – became prominent in the 1960s with the invention of call centers. The development of 1-800 number furthered this notion by allowing a cost-effective and quick way to connect with businesses for service and support. Even after all the emerging technology to get help, the phone remains the preferred medium for 76% of consumers across all ages.

Myth #2: All conversations can and should be automated

Not all conversations are created equal. Going into automating service with the idea that you’ll be automating every single call coming into your contact center is setting yourself up for failure right off the bat. Virtual agents are made to take over the calls that require quick resolution with minimum human effort. Depending on the organization’s business rules, capabilities can be stretched to fit more in the bucket of a virtual agent. Still, it’s important to build from the ground up in conversational design and take a one-at-a-time approach by tackling the guaranteed full call containment interactions first and then go wider.

Myth #3: Intelligent virtual agents are built and then done

Sure, artificial intelligence is intelligent, but it’s only as intelligent as the data it’s given. Imagine an intelligent virtual agent’s brain working as your brain — the more you learn, the more knowledge you have. Conversational AI automation isn’t something you build out and let run its course. It’s necessary to finetune as more data comes in, as more interactions are had, to capture every utterance, every intent, so that your intelligent virtual agents get smarter.

Myth #4: Pre-built conversational AI templates are the easiest to implement

Pre-built conversational AI templates might seem like an easy way to dip toes into the automation pond. But anything pre-built is not personalized or customized to your industry or even, more specifically, your business. Those choosing pre-built will spend countless hours trying to fit the conversations to their model with reverse engineering, or they’ll run the pre-built conversations and frustrate customers with the lack of personalization and full-fledged integration of their business particularities. In most cases, pre-built conversational AI is the hardest to make work and implement, along with being the hardest to finetune for further improvement.

Myth #5: AI is here to take jobs away from humans

Though this myth isn’t widely relevant anymore due to the general acceptance of conversational AI in our everyday lives through technologies like Amazon’s Alexa, Google’s Assistant, and Apple’s Siri, it’s worth noting there still lives a belief: AI is here to take over. Not in the Hollywood standard way of total apocalyptic destruction of the human race, but in a more straightforward way — it’s here to take our jobs. We covered this topic, along with the history of all industrial revolutions to come before it in our webinar titled “The Coming Live Agent Apocalypse.”

Since SmartAction has been in business, not once has it witnessed a massive layoff of any kind from any company we’ve partnered with. Intelligent virtual agents assist live agents in the mundane, repetitive tasks that cause such high turnover in call centers. They resolve interactions that are the root of long hold times so that human agents can handle the calls that require a human touch. The relationship between a live agent and a virtual agent is symbiotic — teamwork making your customer’s dream of better service work. To learn more about the impending live agent apocalypse that