Many companies today are finding it’s not enough to add sprinklings of artificial intelligence (AI) to their operations. These small deployments – known as “low maturity” – are not "reaping contact centers the kinds of returns that are worth the deployments," according to a new study.
In fact, 60% of AI deployments in the contact center are low maturity, according to this new AI Maturity Benchmark Report by UJET, a provider of AI-powered cloud contact center solutions. The data (which found low maturity deployments do not drive business value or solve customers’ problems) provides insights into why many organizations struggle to unlock results in their AI journeys.
The study found that while 75% of contact centers are prioritizing AI investments over the next 12 months, only 10% have high maturity AI programs in place today. As a result, most contact centers continue to struggle with high agent turnover and workforce shortages (42%), employee burnout and stress (39%), fragmented tools and data (31%), long customer wait times (20%) and other drags on a positive customer experience.
The study revealed that 13% of contact centers are not implementing AI at all, and most active AI deployments are considered low maturity, including leveraging AI in chatbots for self-service (47%), performance and call analytics (39%) and routing of customer inquiries (38%). The lack of maturity makes it impossible for 45% of contact centers to know if they’ve solved a customer’s problem on the first touchpoint.
Higher maturity AI deployments move beyond stand-alone conversational AI and self-service tools, to power more predictive, proactive, and personalized customer interactions, while also improving the employee experience for contact center agents, admins and supervisors, the study found.
“The majority of contact center AI deployments we see are disproportionately focused on deflection and containment through self-service with cost management and agent efficiency as key business priorities,” said Vasili Triant, co-CEO of UJET. “This new data shows that more mature AI deployments emphasizing customer experience, revenue growth, and business insights correlate directly to better business outcomes.”
Edited by
Alex Passett
