Bringing in the concept of ‘Blended AI’; Genesys respects the human touch in automated contact center operations

Keith Budge, Senior Vice President and General Manager, APAC & Japan of Genesys is in Mumbai. Apart from his main agenda at Mumbai, which is partnering and meeting potential clients, he is interacting with the media to spread the concept of ‘Blended AI’. The term – Blended AI – Keith Budge says was coined recently by his company, Genesys. To understand more about this concept, VoicenData interacted with Budge.

Giving an overview of the company first, Budge says that Genesys is a globally located enterprise that provides software services to enhance customer experiences. The company boasts of aiding conversations between employee and customer on any channel and it is believed that 11,000 companies in more than 100 countries exploit Genesys’ customer experience platform to drive great business outcomes and to create lasting relationships. In the many years of its existence, Genesys has earned accolades for its blend of technology with human ingenuity and virtual solutions that mirror natural communications, over real-time premise and on the cloud.

Pinning on the point of our discussion on Blended AI, i.e., the critical role played by humans in closing the gap between AI and reality, Keith Budge says that the use of Artificial Intelligence-based solutions in traditional contact centres has come to the rescue of customers who have limited time to go through the traditional IVR system. Since customer experience and customer satisfaction are two primary factors that large and small companies are constantly striving for, it becomes imperative to provide quick resolutions to customer queries and to keep them happy. These AI-based automated solutions are critical to understanding a pattern of queries in order to bring resolutions at a short time.

Predictive Routing is another term that Bugde used to explain how it is important to deploy AI platforms in a contact centre to solve customer queries in a short time. Genesys has AI-solutions based on analyzing several data received, i.e. the pattern-based queries, at the contact centres. Algorithms have been appropriately created to direct the call coming into the contact centre and based on AI-enabled predictive analysis the call is either taken up or routed to a ChatBot or a human agent who holds expertise in resolving the issue at the fastest time.

Budge’s experience indicates that considering the volume of customers in the telecommunications vertical, it is by far the most demanding industry that implements AI platforms in its contact centre operations. Close on heels is the banking and its associated operations. Where he sees, tremendous opportunity in Government services that bring a social change to citizens. Globally, the Government agencies, Budge says, have to consider taking up the new-age technologies to keep their citizens happy.