Benefits of Conversational AI for Enterprise Companies

Intro

It’s easy to feel lost in the constant conversation about the rise of AI technology and what it means for enterprise businesses. Discussions are often based on hyperbole and prediction – when what really matters is the tangible impact AI can have right now. 

Conversational AI, a type of AI that deals with natural language and conversations, is a good example. Many articles discuss CAI, how it can work, and what it can do, but too few focus on the area that matters most: the benefits it brings to enterprise organizations. 

In this article, we’ll explore the benefits of Conversational AI and how adopting AI automation can improve productivity, cut costs, and even (contrary to fears of AI replacing real jobs) improve the workplace satisfaction of your human agents…

What is Conversational AI?

Conversational AI is a type of AI that deals with understanding and interpreting human language via voice and text. It uses Natural Language Understanding (NLU) and Machine Learning (ML) to allow machines to understand natural language and the intent behind it. In a service context, that means understanding what a customer wants to get done, such as changing a reservation.

In an enterprise organization, Conversational AI will be a key part of a feature-rich AI Agent, allowing the agent to comprehend human speech and text input. With CAI, an AI Agent can identify what is being said/typed and understand the context and sentiment behind the input. 

This deeper level of understanding is a dramatic evolution compared to the capabilities offered by pre-AI chatbots and it enables AI Agents to move away from rigid rule-based systems and pre-defined prompts, resulting in more naturalistic, dynamic conversations that mimic human language. 

Conversational AI is not a standalone technology and usually works alongside Generative AI, which generates responses based on the input as understood by the Conversational AI element. 

Conversational AI Does Not Stand Alone

Conversational AI is most effective when used as part of a wider AI Agent platform that combines other types of AI, such as Generative and Agentic AI. CAI allows the AI Agent to understand language and interact with a user, but it only offers truly compelling benefits when used alongside these other technologies. 

If you’d like to learn more, click each link to learn about Generative AI and Agentic AI.

What Are The Benefits of Conversational AI?

The benefits of Conversational AI are absolutely transformational for any business that deals with customer contact on a large scale. From saving time across your most labor-intensive, low-complexity tasks to boosting human agent productivity and actively improving customer satisfaction metrics, there are so many reasons to invest in CAI for your business. 

Effective Automation In Customer Service 

There’s no denying the value of automation—but only if it doesn’t harm user experiences. Customer service is a field ripe for automation, with many laborious processes draining time and energy from customers and human agents. 

Take, for example, caller identification & verification (ID&V), which occurs in almost every single customer interaction. AI agents use Conversational AI to ask users to submit their information, guide them through the process, and verify any details against the customer’s CRM entry – all without any human intervention. 

For your enterprise to benefit from automation, you must protect the quality of customer experiences. Though a customer may be comfortable with an AI Agent for the initial verification stages of a call, they may quickly lose patience if the rest of the interaction feels too scripted and inflexible. 

A customer’s need for valuable service interactions demonstrates Conversational AI's critical role in helping reframe interaction with automated systems. Without CAI, customers may experience chatbot interactions that are too rigid and prone to error. 

With it, interactions can take place 24/7 and become more fluid, dynamic, and personal, which in turn means customers become far more comfortable with the automated systems that can save you the most time and money. 

Improves Agent Productivity

Customer service teams may feel threatened by the idea of AI adoption – but they don’t need to be. Automation is best used to augment your workforce, not to replace them. Conversational AI can help your human agents perform better in their roles, assisting with processes such as call summarization that humans often view as dull or demotivating.

Agent Assist features improve human productivity at various points throughout a typical customer call: 

• Start: The AI Agent answers calls instantly and begins guiding the customer through the ID&V process, checking their input against the CRM system. If required, the AI Agent will also translate in real time. Human agents can focus on more important, varied tasks instead of high-volume, low-complexity ones like this. 
• Handover: After completing ID&V, the AI Agent can gather additional context, such as asking the reason for a call, before intelligently routing the case to the most appropriate team. When it does, it will create a full contextual handover that means the answering agent gets full context over the case so far – preventing any need for a customer to repeat themselves or for the agent to look up additional information.
• Mid-call: The AI Agent supports your human workforce by providing real-time translation and transcription. Using a combination of CAI and Generative AI, the Agent can also generate responses to customer queries and present the information to your human agents to speed up resolutions. 
• Wrap-up: When wrapping up a call, human agents need to create case logs and summaries – usually to fit within a pre-defined format. This process often adds 2-5 minutes to every case and is often done incorrectly by a demotivated agent. With Conversational AI, the summary is created automatically, and human agents can simply check it over, make any tweaks, and then approve it. 

Personalizes User Interactions

Customers value personalization in every interaction. Conversational AI can remember previous conversations and also access backend systems like your CRM to consult customer data. Using this information, an AI Agent can offer a more personalized and contextual interaction framed around a customer’s history, preferences, and circumstances. 

Facilitates Omnichannel, 24/7 Support

Customers want to interact with service teams on an omnichannel basis, using whatever device and platform they prefer. In a similar vein to how “call centers” have become “contact centers”, service teams need to adopt a truly omnichannel mindset if they want to serve customers most effectively. 

Conversational AI powers Agents that are available 24/7 and are not tied to any specific platform, and can be deployed across multiple channels, including social media, voice calls, text messaging, and web chat windows. 

Customers can contact AI Agents using whatever channel they prefer, at any time of day, without your organization having to pay for shift work or offshoring to a different time zone or region. 

Establishes Self-Service Automation

Providing self-service options empowers customers and alleviates pressure on your team. In a pre-AI era, self-service was highly limited by the fixed workflows that defined chatbots – meaning any valuable self-service option required lots of planning and programming. Learn more about this in our chatbot vs conversational AI comparison guide.  

Conversational AI allows you to deploy more robust, flexible self-service options. AI Agents can carry out tasks such as managing bookings, checking order status, and changing personal details without human intervention. 

This goal-oriented behavior makes AI Agents a fantastic self-service option. They help reduce the burden on your service team and empower customers to instantly resolve everyday, low-complexity tasks at the most convenient time. 

Lowers Costs

The most compelling benefit for enterprise organisations is, of course, the cost savings promised by Conversational AI. 

All of the benefits we’ve covered above combine to result in happier customers, faster calls, more productive agents, and more positive outcomes, which, in turn, means you use AI Agents to scale more effectively into the future by working with more customers without having to recruit more human resources.

Conversational AI Is The Future

To scale into a more demanding future, enterprise organizations must find ways to meet customer needs without hamstringing their budgets. Conversational AI powers dynamic AI Agents that can act as frontline support. This streamlines customer service processes and augments your human team to drive productivity gains and cost savings across your business.

Try a demo of Cognigy.AI to see how AI Agents can work for you.