How Does RPA Improve the Customer Experience and Drive Profitability in Call Centers?

With the arrival of Robotic Process Automation (RPA), companies are beginning to see huge growth in terms of savings and scaling of overall operations; however, when it comes to call centers, RPA offers numerous advantages by providing solutions to challenges based on service, process, and technology.

Customer satisfaction is a great KPI for any business and contact centers play a key role in shaping its success. To offer good customer service, it must be fast, personalized and effective, all while meeting first call resolution goals and low average handling time.

High levels of repetitive tasks within call centers can only be circumvented with the contact center automation to improve agent efficiency, customer experience (CX), and increase profitability.

How Does RPA Improve the Customer Experience and Drive Profitability in Call Centers?

1) Customer Identification in the System

When a customer contacts the agent, the agent must identify the agent in the system to obtain the necessary information, such as order status, order number, pending support tickets (if any), shipment identification, etc.

This requires the agent to interact with the customer and at the same time move from one system to another: the database / CRM that has the customer’s details and another system with more information such as status and order number, etc.

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) offers an intuitive approach to data integration and workflow, eliminating the need to switch between multiple applications. Thus, the customer identification time in the system is reduced and the history can be viewed on a single screen.

2) Updating Customer Information in the System

As the call progresses toward resolving the problem, the agent must update the customer’s history data. RPA allows the integration of data in various fields of associated systems using a single entry by the call center agent. Additionally, integrations with internal software or systems such as CRM and other third-party tools eliminate time spent on desktop activities between applications.

As a result of call center automation using RPA, the agent can help the customer in a satisfactory way and the customer does not need to wait for the agent to handle the data.

3) Call Repetition

In many cases, the call goes through different agents until the customer’s problem is resolved. With advanced routing tools, repeat calls in contact centers have been greatly reduced. But in many scenarios, depending on the nature of the customer’s problem, the call must go through different agents, often requiring the customer to repeat the details of the problem multiple times.

Using robotic process automation in contact centers, the complete customer profile with details of past interactions can be uploaded with a single click. In this way, repetitive processes for which RPA can be used are reduced, reducing costs and improving the profits of an organization.

Where Can Robotic Process Automation be Applied?

• Billing information.
• Employee data management.
• Issuance of refunds.
• Creation of invoices.
• Data migration.
• Preparation of reports.

How to Implement Robotic Process Automation?

RPA is revolutionizing the way business processes are carried out in all industries. With it, business processes can be achieved 20 times faster. In addition to being fast, robotic process automation works 24 hours a day, with almost zero errors and no diminishing returns.

RPA software “bots” interact with business processes in a human-like way without disrupting the IT architecture. To achieve the desired results, deployments need detailed planning:

1) Process Identification

Before diving fully into implementation, it is first necessary to identify processes that are repetitive and require minimal decision-making in the industry / workplace. The identification of these processes must also take into account other aspects such as identifying the costs of the different processes, the impact of automation on the workflow, etc. The steps involved in identifying the process are:

• Identify the repetitive process that you want to automate.
• Describe the flow of the process using steps and rules.
• Develop an automation plan mapping each step of the process.

2) Bot Training

The RPA implementation requires the bot / tool to go through the process step by step successfully. This requires training the bot to fit the use case and respond as expected. The measures to follow are the following:

• Train the robot using various test cases, allowing it to learn.
• Test the robot and detect possible errors to improve them.

3) Scaling the RPA Bot

It is not enough just to develop the RPA bot. It is essential that the bot adapts to the tools of the workforce, designing and implementing a new operating model. The steps required to scale the bot are:

• Create general stages / timelines to implement bots.
• Design new operating models that include the bot in their workflow.
• Migrate to a scalable IT architecture.

What Are the Benefits of Implementing RPA in Call Centers?

Although we have seen how to adapt automation within contact centers, let’s now see how the implementation of RPA in call centers will significantly improve services in relation to:

• Shorter average call duration.
• Significant reduction of errors.
• Improved communication.
• Optimal use of resources.
• Automated responses.

With robotic process automation, employees can perform more strategic and innovative work and repetitive tasks are taken care of by automation. Industries that have implemented RPA have already experienced a significant decrease in incurred costs while achieving better ROI.

Implementing robotic process automation in business requires elaborate planning and analysis

 The right RPA implementation partner should be able to advise on RPA scalability for the business.

The experience that customers have when communicating with the customer service team is vital to the reputation and longevity of the business. A bad interaction can lead to a negative opinion of how the company cares about users, and depending on this reputation, it can either win new customers or lose them. With RPA solutions, agents can offer a high level of customer service that makes the organization accessible, flexible, and relevant.

Therefore, any call center must consider the myriad of benefits that both RPA and Artificial Intelligence (AI) can bring to processes, not only from a cost perspective, but also by ensuring that the team dedicates their time to more complex and productive tasks.