For many companies, contact centers are an undeniable reality of doing business.
Whether it is in the form of aftercare or support—like with SaaS companies—or as part of a core offering—like emergency call-out services—contact centers provide essential information or access for customers.
Yet, as many users of contact centers can testify, their experience with them is not broadly positive.
Long wait times are often the biggest frustrations with contact centers.
As a result, the CCaaS industry has been tackling the issue head-on.
Using AI, companies have found ways to take pressure off agents during peak times so customers are still served without having to wait for agents.
One example of this is with NICE, who have developed an AI-powered self-service bot: the CXone Mpower Autopilot.
But far from this being an extension of the dreaded chatbot or interactive virtual receptionist that is not too well received by users, NICE has recently reported their AI autopilot has increased in use by 400%.
Examining the Increase
CXone Mpower Autopilot is part of a suite of AI-driven products within NICE’s CXone Mpower CCaaS platform, released in June 2024.
In under a year, NICE’s recent report found it entered a record-breaking time for its CX automation and augmentation: 6 billion AI-augmented interactions and 2 trillion AI-analyzed words per month in 2024.
This represented a surge in the number of customer service interactions leveraging AI and automation.
In 2024 alone, NICE managed the equivalent of 123,560 years of knowledge consumption.
And this increase was equitable across the companies it works with.
Its 2024 Customer Highlights saw entertainment company Sony identify that 40% of its inquiries were automation-ready, leading to a 15.9% self-service resolution rate with Autopilot.
Cruise operator Carnival UK managed to streamline 1.2 million guest interactions annually with CXone Mpower.
TD Bank Group, one of North America’s largest banks, cut customer wait times by 88 million minutes in a year—even as the volume of calls handled increased by 11%—while reporting record-breaking customer satisfaction.
“We’ve reached a pivotal moment in the customer service evolution where automation now touches every interaction,”
Barry Cooper, President, CX Division, NICE, said.
