As Dialpad formally launches Dialpad Support for call centres, UC Today caught up with Dan O’Connell, Chief Strategy Officer, at Dialpad to get his thoughts on what the key trends in real-time analysis, AI and contact centre will be in 2019.
Real-time analysis is all the rage at the moment, what is the next step that we are likely to see in 2019?
“The real-time technology that emerged in 2018 will only become more pervasive in 2019”.
“As we continue to process more conversation data, we’ll be able to move from real-time insights to prescriptive and even predictive insights. Does a prospect intend to buy? Are they headed to churn? These are questions we’ll answer without ever having to ask based on aggregate conversation patterns and communication signals.”
What are customers knocking on the door for?
“Customers continue to ask for integrations with the rest of their technology stack to ensure a seamless and streamlined user experience. The insights they collect through their business phone system only really become valuable if they’re easily shareable with the rest of the business. That means the ability to easily upload conversation records and insights to CRMs, support ticketing systems, and data warehousing programs”.
Do you see 2019 as the year everyone gets on board with AI or will there still be caution?
“I think next year will see the market shake out a bit. Artificial Intelligence isn’t just a trend, there are real technologies at work solving big problems. That said, 2018 showed us there’s a lot of hype and interest in AI. It was easy for companies to market themselves as AI-powered. In 2019 I believe we’ll see businesses shift from buying the promise of AI to wanting to see results from the software that’s being or has been invested in. Separately, there will be winners and losers from the first wave”.
“I think we’ll see a new set of startups start to drive innovation”.
“That sounds a bit obvious, but 18-months ago there was a rush from the venture world to invest in voice AI startups which has since slowed. I think we’ll see additional and new investments in this area given the opportunity and addressable market”.
Will consumer activity impact the way contact centres need to react in 2019?
“One of the trends we’re already surfacing with VoiceAI is that consumer questions tend to be more nuanced by the time they reach a live agent. This has consequences for businesses that think they’ll be able to completely eliminate or replace their customer support teams with automated agents.
Every technology has its limitations and every decision tree will eventually break. If contact centres want to deliver consistently great customer service, it will be in their best interest to invest in live agents and leverage technologies to augment, as opposed to automate, customer conversations”.
Any other thoughts or predictions for 2019?
“Full-stack solutions. We joined forces with Dialpad because we saw a path to becoming the best cloud telephony platform with a native voice assistant and voice analytics already baked in. To us, that’s the future of business communications. I believe this thinking plays out in other areas such as sales enablement and CRM. If we can reduce the number of software solutions a customer needs to buy, it’s a better, more cost-effective user experience”.
Dan was giving his thoughts following the launch of Dialpad Support. Built on the Google Cloud Platform, Dialpad Support is the US-based company’s new AI-powered call centre solution for modern customer support teams. Highlight features include:
- Real-time sentiment analysis, alerts, and service level dashboards for call centre managers
- Real-time call transcription and recommendations for call centre agents
- Unlimited inbound and outbound calling (within fair usage policies)
