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Conversation Simulation: Creating Top-performing Customer-facing Teams
Submitted by Zenarate

January 1, 2022

Conversation Simulation: Creating Top-performing Customer-facing Teams

Like learning how to fly a plane, mastery isn't achieved by taking tests and quizzes or watching videos. It's learned through simulation, and practice is the key to mastery. Conversation Simulation allows new hires and underperforming customer-facing agents to master high-value call and chat scenarios before interacting with live customers.

Many of the world’s leading brands in banking, healthcare, and professional services are using Zenarate’s AI Coach to create top-performing, customer-facing teams around the globe. To learn more or schedule a live demo, please visit: Zenarate.

Within the contact center and customer relationship industry, a new generation of Natural Language Processing technologies is blending linguistics, computer science and artificial intelligence to help people perform their best through Conversation Simulation.

Contact center leaders know that automation is leaving agents with the toughest problems to solve. And leading brands know that customers expect real humans to solve complex problems and deliver a satisfying customer experience. 

What is Conversation Simulation?

Conversation Simulation is a human-centered AI approach to develop confident top-performing customer-facing teams through highly realistic and impactful learning experiences. It creates hyper-realistic simulations of any call or chat scenario so agents can learn through practicing, solving problems, making mistakes and building confidence. It's like training in a live environment, but without any risks.

There are three steps in the Conversation Simulation process to create a top-performing workforce delivering industry-leading performance: 

  1. Agents listen to a best practice example of how to handle a call or chat scenario.  

  2. Agents interact with their personal AI Coach simulating a call or chat customer scenario. If the agent doesn’t use your best and required practices, the AI Coach will pause the simulation, provide real-time feedback, and ask the agent to try again. 

  3. Trainers and managers assess agent readiness to engage with live customers through their Simulation Scorecard and Immersion Call Listening.

Conversation Simulation actively empowers agents to master high-impact conversation scenarios quickly and conveniently to deliver consistently superior customer experiences and first contact resolution. Agents engage with their personal AI Coach in a safe environment from home or office. Agents report high user experience scores enjoying their experience interacting with their personal AI Coach improving their confidence, removing their anxiety, and preparing them to engage with live customers. 

Conversation Simulation and Conversation Intelligence

AI technology is used in various ways to improve contact center performance. The combination of Conversation Simulation + Conversation Intelligence is emerging as the best approach for creating a confident top-performing customer-facing enterprise workforce. Zenarate enterprise clients see Conversation Simulation + Conversation Intelligence as the two integral pieces for scaling consistent  superior customer experiences, as outlined in the diagram below:

Zenarate customers use Conversation Simulation to create confident top-performing new hire agents before they engage with live customers. After new hire agents move from training to live customer interactions, Zenarate customers use Conversation Intelligence to analyze customer interactions and identify new learning needs. Zenarate customers use Conversation Simulation to address new learning needs through targeted immersion. 

Conversation Intelligence provides vital information to help managers diagnose areas that need improvement and attention, and Conversation Simulation is a treatment plan to mend the fractures and drive continuous improvement.

Let's look at how Conversation Simulation benefits agents, trainers, managers, and contact center leaders.

  1. Call & Chat Simulation. Agents master high-impact topics and best practices through conversation Simulation. The AI Coach simulates a conversation between an agent and a customer. The new hire or underperforming tenured agent plays the role of the agent and the AI Coach plays the role of the customer. The agent speaks or types and the AI Coach replies. If the agent doesn’t use the best and required practices, their AI Coach will interrupt the agent and provide real-time feedback allowing the agent to master the best methods for delivering consistently superior customer experiences and results.

  2. Topic Mastery. The agent studies the topic by reviewing material and listening to the best examples in the platform. When the agent is ready to engage with their AI Coach, the agent initiates a Conversation Simulation session to role play with their AI Coach. The session is conducted in private between the agent and their AI Coach allowing the agent to master high-impact topics and best methods in a safe environment from home or office. The agent can restart the Conversation Simulation sessions as many times as necessary until they master the topic. The agent has the option to share their best session with their manager or coach.  

  3. Agent Certification. Zenarate AI Coach customers produce Simulation Scorecards reporting agent Conversation Simulation activity and topic mastery performance. Trainers and managers use their Simulation Scorecards and Immersion Call Listening to assess agent readiness and certify agents for the floor.

  4. Agent Confidence: Without Conversation Simulation, agents must stumble and fall with live customers to become confident and proficient. Conversation Simulation allows agents to feel like they are having a real conversation in a safe environment without risking the company's reputation with live customers. Conversation Simulation removes agent anxiety, builds agent confidence, and minimizes the risk of agents engaging with live customers before they have mastered your best methods.

  5. Personalized Learning: Every person learns differently and improves at their own pace. With Conversation Simulation, agents use their own words without scripting and practice responding to real-time simulated responses on any topic or persona. Agents enjoy their AI Coach experience mastering best methods through immersive learning before engaging with live customers.

  6. Human-centered AI: Much of the AI innovation deployed in contact centers today aims to reduce human interaction and automate workflows. Conversation Simulation is the polar opposite, focusing exclusively on the human being. Specifically, preparing customer-facing employees to engage amazingly with your customers, whether on the phone, through chat, via virtual calls, or in person.

  7. KPI Lift. Zenarate customers in banking, healthcare, and professional services have deployed their AI Coach worldwide in multiple languages and various use cases such as customer service, service to sales, customer retention, collections, fraud and sales. On average, agents who master best and required practices through Conversation Simulation experience 56% faster speed-to-proficiency, 33% higher CSAT scores and 32% lower attrition.

  8. Low Risk to Test & Deploy. There is no personal or account information and no IT integration for test or full-scale enterprise Zenarate AI Coach rollout. The only IT requirements are a Chrome browser and a headset (any common headset works great including Apple Air Pods). 

Conversation Simulation incorporates the most advanced AI/ML to help humans perform their best instead of replacing them. Now, organizations like yours can scale top-performing customer-facing teams consistently deploying your best methods across your global enterprise. In any human endeavor, from learning how to play a sport, cook a great meal, or fly a plane, practice is the key to mastery. To learn more about Zenarate or schedule a live demo, please visit: Zenarate.

 
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