Are you looking to augment your workforce with a crew of virtual employees in the upcoming financial year?
That’s the plan for scores of Australian businesses looking to contain costs, reduce repetitive manual activity in the back office and deliver faster, more responsive service to customers, partners and suppliers.
They’re part of a collective AI adoption wave that looks set to become a tsunami in FY2027. Almost half of all businesses are identifying opportunities to make savings and achieve efficiencies via the embrace of new technologies, including AI, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ latest Business Characteristics Survey released in June.
For many mid-sized and enterprise organisations, the contact centre, back-office functions and field operations are the logical places to start deploying AI. AI-enabled knowledge solutions are a powerful aide for team; helping them pinpoint relevant answers to customer and employee enquiries within seconds. And virtual agents that have the capability to provide information and resolve routine enquiries around the clock can be beneficial for both customers and the business.
Managing high-performing AI agents
But positive outcomes and happy customers are far from a given. In fact, the reverse: latest research suggests around 80 per cent of AI deployments fail. Businesses that don’t devote ongoing resources to training and developing their digital workforced can be all but guaranteed theirs will be no exception.
That’s because, just like their human counterparts, AI agents shouldn’t be dropped into a business to sink or swim.These newly minted ‘workers’ need to be monitored in situ and then coached and optimised in the areas where they’re falling short. That should happen not just once or twice but regularly and rigorously.
Indeed, the mistake many organisations make is assuming that because AI doesn’t need a manager, it doesn’t need management. In reality, digital workforces require just as much operational discipline as a human workforce and therefore require a different management model. Both rely on quality knowledge, performance measurement, quality assurance, reporting and continual improvement.
Where people are supported through leadership, coaching and development, AI agents are supported through knowledge curation, governance, testing, prompt refinement and operational optimisation. Different disciplines, but the same objective to enable both human and digital workers to consistently deliver great customer outcomes.
Ahead of the curve organisations have worked this out and are adding AI chat analysts to their teams on a part time or full-time basis.
Broadly the equivalent of a contact centre team leader or trainer, the best person for the role is someone who understands the outcomes virtual agents are intended to achieve, and what good looks like from a customer perspective. Ideally, they’ll have the support of senior leaders and decision makers from every area of the business.
Damaging your customer experience with ‘set and forget’ AI
Not making this ongoing investment – effectively treating a virtual workforce as a ‘set and forget’ asset after it goes live – can save money in the short term.
In the longer term, however, it’s an economy that can end up costing organisations extremely dear. In today’s times, the contact centre is arguably the most important customer experience hub, bar none. In fact, for some digital businesses, it’s their only interface with the world.
Replacing skilled human employees with virtual agents that deliver incorrect information or provide a sub-par customer experience erodes trust and may irritate customers. Given the growing body of research suggesting many will start considering their options following even a single unsatisfactory interaction, that’s a risk few businesses can afford to take.
The resultant damage to brand and sales can be costly to reverse – far more expensive than investing in the support a virtual workforce needs to succeed in the first place.
Getting customer experience experts on board early
Ensuring AI enhances, rather than detracts from, your customer experience is far from straightforward, particularly for medium sized enterprises that don’t have the capacity to retain specialist resources inhouse.
That’s why it can pay to work with external experts; seasoned customer experience consultants who can offer vital insights into what’s likely to work best for a business like yours and where the pitfalls lie.
Bringing them on board in the project design and planning stages will give you a better chance of achieving positive outcomes and an optimal return on your investment in a virtual workforce.
Building a virtual workforce that can add long term value to your organisation
While there are certainly risks in getting AI wrong, we’re also seeing genuine improvements in productivity, customer experience and employee effectiveness when it’s implemented and managed well. The real differentiator isn’t necessarily who deploys AI first or who deploys it fast, but who establishes the operational disciplines to continuously improve it.
In today’s times, AI agents can bring efficiency and responsiveness to an enterprise’s high-stakes environment, provided they’re rigorously monitored and optimised, post deployment. Committing to this ongoing enhancement of your virtual workforce will ensure it delivers the value your business is seeking, now and into the future.