Telephone answering services have evolved in two key ways in recent years. The first, which we covered in a previous blog, is that agents who work for third-party telephone answering services are capable of and are doing much more than taking down messages and passing them along. Thanks to cloud-based technology and the access it provides, TAS agents can schedule appointments, process orders, and even provide some customer support. The second way is the introduction of artificial intelligence in telephone answering services, which has evolved to the point that customers can have an entire conversation with an AI agent. Here’s how AI is being used in telephone answering services.

Nowadays, most companies have a chatbot on their website. Customers can send a message or ask a basic question and receive an immediate response that (hopefully) answers their question or provides helpful insight into how to move forward with addressing their issue. An AI answering service is the same thing, but over the phone. Just like a chatbot, a voicebot prompts you in how to ask or frame your question and then does its best to provide a solution or point you in the right direction.

How is this different from an interactive voice responder, or IVR? While an IVR does technically listen to your responses to its prompts and direct you accordingly, it is only able to follow preset paths. If you ask a question that does not fit with one of the responses the IVR is programmed for, you can get sent to a general mailbox or back to the beginning of the menu. What’s more, the goal of an IVR is to ultimately connect you with a real person who is best equipped to assist you in solving your problem. An AI answering service, on the other hand, is constantly filing away data on every call it completes so that it can train and evolve in its responses based on the path that calls are following and the types of inquiries customers are making. Then there’s the fact that there is no live person at the end of the call—the customer communicates with the AI until their issue is resolved or next steps are determined.

There are other perks to using an AI answering service as well. Just as the AI will train with data that it collects and that is given and learn as a result, it can also use this data to predict customer intent. This can lead to more streamlined calls that get the customer to the result they are looking for much faster. What’s more, it doesn’t need to rely on customer feedback or surveys to collect the information it needs to improve. Everything is connected in a continuous and seamless process—as calls play out, the AI is remembering exactly what happens, recognizing things it could do differently, and then making those changes for the future.

And no, that’s not all. Using AI can help solve other problems that telephone answering services typically face. It can be difficult to staff an answering service 24/7, if that’s the type of support you want to provide, but an AI answering service can be available at all times. Plus, there’s no waiting on hold for an agent to be available—AI can answer hundreds of calls at the same time. Even if there are tasks and inquiries that do require a human agent, AI can handle the ones that don’t, freeing up the live agents to handle the more complex inquiries.

Have questions about AI, or just looking for a high-quality, easy-to-use telephone answering service platform? Either way, CallShaper can help. Contact us today.