Author: Áine McInerney

An office space, filled with rows of designs with people working on laptops

The Best Customer Service Tools For The Contact Centre 

Posted on | by Áine McInerney

To help agents deal with customer queries successfully and efficiently, we recommend the best customer service tools for the contact centre. These include: 

Intelligent Knowledge Base 

At the heart of successful customer service operations is the intelligent knowledge base. 

Acting as your company’s central library of knowledge, it is where all information, documents, tutorials and FAQs are kept. It is your business’ single source of truth. 

An intelligent knowledge base fuels your customer service tools including those that your agents use internally in the contact centre and those that your customers use online. 

As you single source of truth, you can be assured that the information that you as a company – through representative and online – is consistent. When articles are updated or added to the knowledge base editor, each customer service channel reflects these changes in real-time, ensuring up-to-date and accurate information for the best CX. 

Agent Knowledge Base 

Directly communicating with customers, it is important that agents are equipped with the tools that help deliver the best quality of answers in the most efficient way. 

An agent knowledge base, or as we call it at Synthetix, Knowledge: For Your Team provides your agents, with a sea of knowledge right at their fingertips, helping them work more efficiently, positively impacting on CX. 

Built using AI and harnessing powerful Natural Language Processing (NLP), the agent knowledge base unpicks the queries your agents type, analysing each element including keywords, grammar, intent and popularity. Known as AI-predictive suggestions, this feature recommends knowledge articles on each key-press, matching the query with knowledge articles to return the most suitable results.  

Because agents no longer have to search through libraries, resources or intranets for what they believe is the correct answer, Average Handling Times (AHT) is reduced significantly. Not only does this improve the customer experience and gives agents the capacity to deal with more queries but it helps to reduce contact centre costs. 

Knowledge: For Your Team provides agents with the freedom to customise their console so that they can work more efficiently. Some features include: 

  • The capability to ‘Favourite’ an article  
  • Easy access to ‘Useful Links’ 
  • The capability to flag or comment on articles 
  • Click-to-send and click-to-copy article feature 

Further, intelligent knowledge base software offers multiple ‘views’ which are particularly useful for agents that serve multiple brands. A view is a set of knowledge articles that are suitable for a particular audience. Agents can easily switch between views when dealing with customers from different brands, reducing handling times. 

An image showing the knowledge interface

Live Chat Software 

When it comes to dealing with customers directly in the contact centre, live chat proves significantly more efficient than traditional methods such as email or phone. 

A pie chart showing how expensive different call methods are, with phone being the most expensive and then emails

With the capability to deal with multiple customers simultaneous, agents can resolve queries at a quicker rate when compared with telephony or email, boosting AHT and subsequently, reducing support costs. 

Within the chat console, agents benefit from the AI-predictive suggestions feature we discussed previously but from a slightly different angle. Here’s how it works: 

  1. The customer begins typing their query. 
  1. As they do so, the agent previews what is being typed, updating on each key-press. 
  1. AI-predictive suggestions are activated and begin recommending articles based on what is being typed. 
  1. Once the customer has sent their query the agent simply uses the ‘click-to-send’ feature. 
  1. This resolves the customer query and good feedback is left. 

AI Chatbots

Many of your customers will try and solve their queries themselves online via your website. However, self-service – which is excellent for automating routine queries – cannot always solve complex problems.  

When AI is unable to deal with such a query, it is critical that you have a smooth escalation between self-service and agent-assisted channels so that the customer journey is not disrupted and leads to a poor experience. 

An AI chatbot for example, not only detects when escalation needs to take place and automatically transfers the customer to live chat, all within the same window but the customer doesn’t need to repeat themselves. A study found that 33% of customers are most frustrated by having to repeat themselves multiple times.  

However, because the chatbot, during escalation, sends your agents the previous chat transcript, there is no need for repetition, reducing AHT and customer frustration. 

If you enjoyed this article and would like to find out more about customer service tools for the contact centre, read our guide, here. Or, to discuss your organisational needs with an expert

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Knowledge Software In The Contact Centre 

Posted on | by Áine McInerney

Knowledge Software In The Contact Centre

As the beating heart of so many clients’ customer service operations and with expectations constantly evolving, contact centres and BPOs are feeling the pressure to promote efficiency and maintain CSAT – all while keeping costs down.

So, how does knowledge software: an agent knowledge base interface (internal-facing) and web self-service tools (public-facing) help improve contact centre efficiency, customer experience and satisfaction? Here we explore this topic in detail.

The Central Source Of Truth

A knowledge base plays a key role within not only the contact centre but the overall business. It acts as a centralised library of knowledge, your company’s single source of information; everything from HR policies, suitable for internal eyes only, to step-by-step tutorials that can be easily found and digested by your site visitors. 

Synthetix’s knowledge base, for instance, resides at the centre of your clients’ customer service operations. It contains knowledge articles that are essentially the answers to popular queries. These can be categorised and assigned to views, for example, clients usually have both internal and public views, each of which containing very different content suitable to their appropriate audience. 

Powered by AI, our intelligent knowledge base utilises sophisticated Natural Language Processing (NLP) which gets to work when a user begins typing a query into the search bar. NLP picks apart the query, analysing each component including keywords, grammar, intent and popularity to return the most relevant articles.  

The knowledge base provides fundamental information internally to employees but also agents in the contact centre who are helping customers over the phone or live chat. It also provides information externally. The knowledge base fuels self-service channels so that customers can answer their own questions when on your website.  

A diagram that shows that Contact Centres, Web Self Service and 3rd Party Applications are the 3 main bodies that powers a knowledgebase

Knowledge Software And Your Agents

Knowledge software is your agents’ most powerful tool in the contact centre. Whether they access it whilst on the phone or live chat with a customer, It equips your agents with the information necessary to resolve customer queries in the most efficient manner. With a library of knowledge available at their fingertips, contact centre efficiency and support costs dramatically improve. 

Average Handling Time (AHT) Reduction

With quick access to knowledge articles, agents no longer have to search through resources or intranets using multiple windows, hoping that the answer they have found matches the question that has been asked.  

Synthetix’s agent knowledge base, Knowledge: For Your Team not only utilises NLP to provide quick solutions and therefore reduces Average Handling Times (AHT) but for further efficiency, the AI-predictive suggestions function. 

AI-predictive suggestions harness powerful NLP and recommend relevant knowledge articles to the agent based on what keywords are being entered. These suggestions are updated on each key-press, all the agent must do is click to copy and the resolution is provided.  

Live chat agents can optimise handling times even further using our live key-press feed feature. It allows the agent to preview what a customer is typing in real-time before they hit “send”. This lets them problem-solve and prepare a resolution as the query is sent, reducing AHT and improving CX. 

First Contact Resolution (FCR) Improvement

First Contact Resolution (FCR), the rate at which a customer query is resolved on the first call or contact with a contact centre agent is fundamental to customer satisfaction and loyalty.  

Poor FCR happens all too often and can stem from a number of things, leaving customers feeling frustrated and dissatisfied. When a customer has to call back in because the answer they were initially given is incorrect it is generally down to the knowledge base. 

When inconsistent or inaccurate information is provided to a customer, it is usually because a company’s information sources have not been updated. For instance, a policy change occurs but only the website FAQs are updated, leaving the internal knowledge base with old, inaccurate details.  

A centralised knowledge base, on the other hand, controls all sources of information and reflects and updates in real-time.  

Agent Satisfaction

As NLP takes effect in customer self-service channels such as FAQ tools and chatbots, the volume of routine queries that ultimately reach the contact centre are significantly reduced. Instead of agents dealing with the same, common queries, AI instead handles them. 

This removes the mundane from agents’ jobs and allows them the bandwidth required to deal with customer queries that are complex by nature and require human understanding and reasoning. Helping people through their problems gives employees a sense of purpose and therefore increases job satisfaction and enrichment. 

Furthermore, when provided with software that is easy to use and genuinely helpful, the working day becomes more enjoyable and efficient, for example: 

  • An integrated knowledge base that resides within the agent’s internal interface. 
  • AI-predictive suggestions that recommend articles based on what an agent is typing in. 
  • NLP-fuelled technology that ensures the relevancy and consistency of answers. 
  • A “Favourites” function for quick access to commonly used articles, avoiding the need for repetitive searching. 

Training Optimisation

With an AI-powered knowledge base acting as the ultimate training tool, providing new starters with a library full of knowledge, training times can be reduced on average by 30% 

Answers that are available at a keypress significantly reduces the time in which it would otherwise take to onboard and train a new agent.  

Synthetix’s internal knowledge base solution, Knowledge: For Your Team includes agent scripting, powered by simple decision tree technology. Transform your newest employees into seasoned experts by providing them with multi-step decision trees to follow, helping them complete processes and problem-solving with ease.  

Knowledge Software And Customers ​

Intelligent knowledge base software powers a range of external-facing channels that aim to help customers find answers to their own questions. 

The centralised knowledge base powers customer self-service channels such as chatbots, FAQ tools and SEO help centres. This ensures that the information in which agents are serving customers via live chat and telephone is the same that customers are served via web self-service tools. 

Knowledge software not only provides site visitors with the tools to find the answers to their own resolutions efficiently, but it also boosts CSAT ratings whilst contributing to significant support cost reductions. 

Contact Centre Cost Reductions

Synthetix’s AI-powered self-service tools utilise sophisticated NLP to automate routine queries and tasks online, deflecting the volume of contact that would otherwise reach the contact centre. This in turn helps to reduce the accumulation of costs associated with handling a query, bringing overall support costs down. 

Further, fewer routine queries reaching the contact centre means that, for those that have complex issues and require the help of contact centre agents, wait time is significantly less which contributes to CSAT. 

Customer Satisfaction

Customer satisfaction and CSAT ratings are critical to customer service and overall business success. One of the most effective ways in which customer satisfaction can be maintained and improved is by providing a good customer experience or CX – particularly when online.  Web self-service channels including FAQ tools, help centres and chatbots help contribute to customer satisfaction for a number of reasons: 
  • Natural Language Processing (NLP) increases the likeliness that the right answer will be served at an efficient rate thanks to its mechanisms. 
  • The option to self-serve. In one survey, 67% of respondents said they would rather self-serve than talk to a company representative. Customers want the freedom to find their own resolution where possible. 
  • Self-service channels contribute to and maintain CX. The automation of routine queries online means that those who need to contact the contact centre experience a smaller wait time and greater bandwidth from agents now that they are less congested with routine questions. 
  • Customers can find the answers to their questions 24/7/365. AI does not need to take breaks or holidays and therefore can help serve customers at any time. This is particularly important for example if customers need emergency information during the early hours of the morning when the contact centre is not open. 
An image demonstrating CSAT

Smooth Customer Journeys

Self-service channels help to create smooth customer journeys, streamlining them so more can be achieved in less time. 

SEO Help Centre

For instance, Synthetix’s SEO help portal that is included within Knowledge: For Your Customers helps customers find what they want at their first touchpoint.  Many customers will begin their digital journeys by typing the company and query into a search engine – this is where the SEO-friendly help centre comes in.   Synthetix technology translates knowledge articles into crawlable web pages so that queries can be found via search engine results, preventing the need for customers to search around for answers, negating the need to speak to an agent, satisfying their requirements right away. 

Chatbots ​

Customer service chatbots such as Xan guide customers through their online journeys, acting as your brand’s digital concierge.   Not only can AI chatbots handle routine queries and tasks but they can automate certain processes for customers, removing the need for any agent intervention and therefore making CX more convenient for the customer and cost-effective for you.  Synthetix utilises open APIs to seamlessly integrate its software with 3rd party applications. This makes it possible for Xan to automate processes such as bookings, payments and policy admin. 

Knowledge Software And Your Software

 When you connect knowledge software – both agent-facing and customer-facing – with your everyday business tools, capabilities are unlocked, operational efficiency is boosted and you can better serve your clients’ customers. 

When it comes to integrating knowledge software with the 3rd party applications you rely on daily, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.  

Ticketing

Harness knowledge software’s NLP capabilities to reduce the volume of routine tickets that the contact entre receives. When you integrate Knowledge: For Your Team with your ticketing software, relevant articles are offered to the customer whilst filling out their ticket. The suggested articles are updated on each keypress and promote CX; instant answers and no wait time. 

Telephony

By connecting knowledge base software with telephony tools, contact centre agents are equipped with quick access to answers, powered by NLP and within the same interface. This helps improve agent efficiency, improve CX, reduce Average Handling Times (AHT) and therefore support costs. 

Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

Develop your existing RPAs further by integrating with knowledge software, whether that’s internal knowledge base software or web self-service tools.  

Expand current automation to generate a more valuable, efficient outcome. With capabilities to share critical 2-way data across platforms, companies benefit from significant operational efficiency, cost savings and enhanced CX. 

Final Thoughts

There are myriad benefits to be reaped when contact centres position knowledge software at the centre of their operations. As the centralised source of knowledge, it can focus on contact centre efficiency and accuracy, bringing AHT down whilst boosting employee satisfaction.   Knowledge software also improves the customer journey whilst reducing the number of routine queries that would otherwise reach the contact centre, significantly bringing down contact centre costs and boosting CSAT.  If you would like to find out how Knowledge: For Your Team or Knowledge: For Your Customers can help optimise your contact centre and CX, please
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A computer keyboard with the word 'Hello' spelled out

Live Chat In The Contact Centre

Posted on | by Áine McInerney

So how exactly can the deployment of live chat software have such an impact on contact centre costs? Here we explore live chat’s position within the contact centre and how the tool’s foundations are built with efficiency in mind. 

The Power Of Live Chat In The Contact Centre 

With customer preference fast shifting to live chat, the agent-assisted channel plays an essential and valuable role within the contact centre. 

Live chat includes features that promote contact centre efficiency, reduce Average Handling Times (AHT) and the costs associated with query handling, resulting in significant cost savings. These functions include: 

As customers’ preferred channel, live chat contributes to CX whilst reducing contact centre costs. 

Simultaneous Chat Slots  

Unlike telephony which only allows agents to deal with one customer at a time, live chat enables simultaneous chat slots, allowing agents to handle multiple customers at once. These chat slots and the number you choose to assign to particular agents can be easily configured within the platform’s admin section. 

Working with up to three simultaneous chats slots helps agents work more efficiently, increasing the rate at which they resolve queries and therefore reducing handling costs. 

AI-Predictive Suggestions And Live Key-Press 

When live chat connects frictionlessly with the AI-powered knowledge base, agents benefit from features that contribute to significant contact centre efficiency. 

AI-predictive suggestions utilise powerful Natural Language Processing (NLP) to recommend, in real-time the most relevant knowledge articles to agents whilst they are communicating with customers. 

When a customer starts typing their query, not only do agents have access to a live key-press feed where they can preview what is being typed before the customer hits “send”, but AI-predictive suggestions take place. 

NLP absorbs what is being typed by the customer on each key-press, looking for keywords, intent, grammar and popularity, analysing each to match with potential articles within the knowledge base.  

These recommendations are refreshed on each key-press and strive to produce the most relevant results where agents can either click to copy directly into the chat or click to open – significantly reducing handling times and therefore support costs. 

Chat Assignment Based On Clients 

When operating a multi-tenant contact centre, it is paramount that each of your clients’ audiences are effectively dealt with. So how can you assure that customers that reach the contact centre via live chat are assigned agents with the relevant skills? 

Synthetix Chat utilises custom triggers that assign specific agents to customers based on their online journey. For instance, the trigger will read that a customer has visited from company X and will therefore be connected with an agent that specialises in company X. 

Once an appropriate agent has received the chat, they can seamlessly toggle to the knowledge base view that is relevant to this customer. 

Synthetix’s knowledge base, Knowledge: For Your Team allows editors to create multiple views. These views contain sets of knowledge articles that are appropriate for a given audience. For instance, if your contact centre supported Company A, Company B and Company C, Synthetix’s knowledge base would contain all of these as separate views that agents could toggle between when necessary. 

Chatbot To Live Chat Escalation 

Our customer service chatbot solution, Xan utilises AI along with configurable custom triggers to automatically detect when a query is too complex for AI alone to resolve and will therefore require agent assistance.  

In this situation, the customer is smoothly escalated, within the same window, to a live chat agent where their query can be better handled. As a result of which, chatbot escalations make up a significant proportion of live chat inbound sessions. 

Enabling 3rd Party Integrations 

Integrating your everyday contact centre tools such as your CRM, Identification & Verification (ID&V) and payments with live chat expands functionality, streamlines processes and increases operational efficiency.  

Synthetix’s open RESTful APIs and Zapier integrations mean that data can be shared across live chat and your favourite 3rd party applications. 

CRM 

Integrating your CRM with Synthetix’s Chat automates processes, saving manual data entry and therefore time. It also helps to increase the accuracy of information. 

The integration pulls customer information into the Chat console so that agents have access to extra data such as contact info, previous communication and order history. This encourages First Contact Resolution (FCR) and speeds up the query handling process. 

Alternatively, agents can update the CRM from the Chat console, updating contact info, adding contacts to automations or sending them newsletters.  

Identification & Verification (ID&V) 

Integrating live chat with Identification & Verification (ID&V) technology allows the process to be fully automated, removing the need for customers to call into the contact centre to verify their identity – a cumbersome and time-heavy task. 

By introducing this integration into the contact centre, handling times are significantly reduced as well as the accumulated costs associated with traditionally handling ID&V, bringing overall contact centre costs down. 

Payments  

Synthetix’s live chat integrates with payment providers to deliver PCI compliance whilst automating the payment process for your clients’ customers. Not only does this reduce handling time but customers feel more secure giving their details over a trusted app rather than over the phone. 

When dealing with a payment, the agent simply gives the payment app permission to take the appropriate details. The agent cannot see what is being entered, only whether the payment has been successful or not, providing PCI compliance. 

Final Thoughts 

Whilst telephony will perhaps always be some customers’ preferred form of contact and therefore play a key role within the contact centre, live chat has much to offer, complimenting the contact centre. 

With the preference for live chat growing, it contributes significantly to agent efficiency and reductions in query handling – all of which impact the contact centre’s bottom line positively resulting in huge cost savings. 

If you would like to find out how Live Chat can help optimise your contact centre and CX, please

Get in Touch
An infographic showing statistics and facts about how synthetix helped reduce handing times and boosted csat for a major beauty retailer

How Major UK Beauty Retailer Reduced Handling Times And Boosted Customer Satisfaction 

Posted on | by Áine McInerney

Case Study

How Major UK Beauty Retailer Reduced Handling Times And Boosted Customer Satisfaction 

A client from 2013, leading Health and Beauty Retailer wanted a customer service solution that allowed them to support their customers in a variety of different ways, including self-service and agent-assisted.

Their existing FAQ capabilities were limited in content and laborious to manage. The Beauty giant wanted a solution that was easy to manage and that would provide them with analytics and feedback functionality to improve customer satisfaction.

Download Case Study PDF
An infographic showing statistics and facts about how synthetix helped reduce handing times and boosted csat for a major beauty retailer

Company Profile

An icon showing multiply locations

2,200
Locations

Case study icon used to show customers

51,000
Employees

An icon showing a customer loyalty card

11.7 Million
Loyalty Card Holders

Post-Implementation Wins

An image that demonstrates a reduction of email contact

Reduced inbound email volume by 35% Knowledge Base, Live Chat and Intelligent Forms.

An image showing positive csat

93% average customer satisfaction score.

An icon showing agents resolve enquiries 8 times faster

Agents resolved customer queries 8 times faster.

An icon showing Live Chat

Over 40% of customers chose live chat over filling in a form.

An icon demonstrating how faq helps 20% of website visitors

Synthetix’s FAQ software helped 20% of website visitors find their answers first time.

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Integration

Our open API enables seamless integrations between our clients’ most-used tools and our software, allowing for advanced Robotic Process Automation (RPA). This client wanted to streamline some of their common customer processes such as, requesting an order update and requesting a VAT receipt without them having to endure a huge wait in between answers.  

By integrating with their RPA tool, using our products, the customer simply gives the information required and the order status/ VAT receipt is returned at a significantly quicker rate than traditional methods.

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Arrange a full demonstration of Synthetix software with our friendly business development team, who will answer all of your questions about our award-winning digital customer engagement solutions.

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A clipboard image showing a guide for 'Live Chat for Customer Support'

Live Chat for Customer Support: The 2022 Buyer’s Guide

Posted on | by Áine McInerney

Why Live Chat for Customer Support?

Whilst customers now have the capabilities – thanks to technological advances in AI – to solve their own queries online, there will always be instances where some human intervention is required. For instance, users can take advantage of self-service channels such as an FAQ portal, widget or chatbot to solve routine queries using AI, but when it comes to more complex queries that require empathy and emotional understanding, a human is required.

This is where agent-assisted contact channels are necessary. In a world where fast service is now not only expected but is arguably the new norm, waiting in long phone queues or waiting days to hear back from an email enquiry just won’t suffice in your customers’ eyes. This is why live chat for customer support is so popular, and customers’ preferred contact channel – 79% in fact!

Not only does it provide your customers with a smoother, more efficient experience, but for the contact centre, it proves significantly more cost-effective to operate than telephony and email. Telephone agents are limited when it comes to their capacity to handle more than 1 query at a time, but live chat provides agents with the tools to solve multiple queries simultaneously.

Live Chat for Customer Support: What to Consider

So, when it comes to choosing the best live chat for customer support, where do you begin? We have broken it down for you into sections below in your very own checklist

A guide for 'Live Chat for Customer Support, The 2021 Buyers Guide'

Commercial Considerations

1. Does Live Chat Align with Your Customer Support and Business Goals?

Before considering live chat solutions, it is fundamental that you and your team are clear on the rationale behind why you are acquiring live chat, what it is aiming to solve and that the goals and objectives are measurable.

Then, once you are ready to begin looking for the right solution, you will be able to identify if a solution’s capabilities and features match your expectations.

For instance, if your goals surrounded improving NPS or CSAT scores then the capability to escalate and integrate would be a deal-breaker. Or, if you have a small call centre of 15 agents and are looking to reduce contact centre costs whilst maintaining quality customer service, finding a pricing model that works for a team of that size, that is fast to implement and supports remote working is essential.

2. Does the Live Chat Vendor Offer Sufficient Customer Support?

It is also important to discuss with those involved the level of customer support you might require from the live chat vendor. This way you have an expectation in which you can measure against, filtering out those who cannot offer you what you need.

This helps to manage expectations from both sides and prevents any detriments surrounding your live chat tool down the line.

For Your Customers

3. Does the Software Facilitate Escalation from Self-Service to Live Chat?

There a number of ways in which customers can reach your site, whether they are actively looking for help or stumble across a reason to ask a question during their customer journey. In both situations, it is vital that, although they might not require it, escalation from self-service to agent-assisted channels are available.

If a visitor wants to purchase something online or has an issue with an order, they might engage with your chatbot initially but come to realise they need human attention. This is where seamless escalation to live chat – within the same window – is vital. Anything less than this is poor CX.

An image that demonstrates how multichannel live chat works.

4. How Quickly Can the Live Chat Solution Be Implemented?

It is vital that before you decide on your live chat vendor that you have discussed implementation timeframes and expectations. Perhaps you want your live chat for customer support up and running as soon as possible, or you have a timeline mapped out already.

Depending on your business requirements, live chat implementation should take a matter of days or weeks and will involve the following steps:

  1. Project kick-off meeting
  2. Design guidelines are discussed
  3. First look designs are shared
  4. Draft integration code is created and sandbox environment access is granted
  5. Design is signed off
  6. Agent training
  7. Testing
  8. Final low-code integration is provided

For more on the stages of live chat implementation, click here.

5. Can the Live Chat Software Integrate With 3rd Party Applications for Optimal CX?

To ensure that your customers’ journeys are smooth and that you are always delivering excellent CX, consider your integration needs. Which everyday business tools must your live chat software connect with in order to achieve this?

Perhaps you require an integration that through live chat facilitates:

  1. Identification and verification (ID&V)
  2. Adding and/or updating contacts in your CRM
  3. Adding/removing a contact from a particular mailing list
  4. Producing certain documentation upon customer request

Whatever it may be, ensure the live chat vendor you choose offer open RESTful APIs that enables the simple 2-way sharing of data.

6. Can the Live Chat Reflect Your Brand?

Injecting your customer support tools with your brand personality is key to standing out amongst competitors. Not only is it a free branding opportunity, but it is a great means to portraying your business to the world.

Select a live chat solution that supports customisation. You should be able to customise colour schemes and add logos, as well as configuring canned responses and search layers to include language and quirks that match your brand guidelines.

7. Can It Contribute to Lead and Revenue Generation?

Whilst many businesses primarily adopt live chat for customer support purposes, it has the capabilities to support both lead and revenue generation.

Live chat solutions that include custom trigger options help to promote additional revenues and lead generation by proactively offering help during critical customer touchpoints.

Read: Do Live Chat Apps Work For Lead Generation?

You simply configure the conditions in which you’d like live chat to trigger, for example, when a certain amount of time is spent on the cart page and the customer is offered help. This could be the difference between a conversion or cart abandonment.

For Your Team

8. Does Live Chat Utilise Natural Language Processing?

Selecting live chat for customer support that is built on AI and harnesses Natural Language Processing (NLP) promotes contact centre efficiency whilst improving your agents’ experience.

Some live chat vendors include an integrated knowledge base within the internal live chat interface. For agents, this means significantly less time is spent searching through resources or asking supervisors for answers. All displayed within the same window, the agent simply begins by typing in the customer’s query and the system, analysing each keyword to understand intent, displays relevant articles.

9. Does It Include Features That Promote Agent Productivity?

To boost agent productivity in the contact centre and dramatically improve Average Handling Times (AHT), pick live chat software that includes features such as AI-predictive suggestions and a live keypress feed.

AI-predictive suggestions slash handling times by recommending to your agents relevant articles based on what the customer is typing. This refreshes on every keypress and is displayed in the mini knowledge base panel, all your agents have to do is click to copy the content into their chat.

A live keypress feed similarly helps to speed up the query handling process. It provides your agents with a preview of what the customer is typing so that resolutions can be prepared often before they have submitted their queue.

10. How Easy Is It to Train Your Agents?

When it comes to live chat for customer support, training your agents shouldn’t be something you have to worry about. Choose a vendor that provides excellent after-sale care – this should include an account manager training your team in how to use their new live chat tool – from basic functionality to clever tips and tricks.

Don’t waste precious time figuring out these things yourselves, ensure experts can demonstrate them for you.

Final Thoughts

Every company’s needs will be different when it comes to live chat acquisition, however by sticking to the above checklist and using its answers as a key criterion, finding the best live chat – that utilises AI, supports a suitable pricing model, is implemented quickly and promotes efficiency – is made simple.

If you enjoyed this article and would like to find out more about live chat, you can here. Or for help selecting live chat software and advice please

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An image of an old fashioned phone

Call Deflection Through AI Chatbots

Posted on | by Áine McInerney

What Is Call Deflection? 

Call deflection is the reduction of calls to the contact centre through alternative means of automated contact methods.

Call deflection is a fundamental focus for CX Managers and the contact centre for a number of reasons: 

  1. Handling calls is expensive 
  1. High call volumes lead to long wait times 
  1. Telephony is not everyone’s preferred contact channel 
  1. Disjointed journeys lead to poor CX 

1. Handling Calls Is Expensive 

When it comes to handling customer queries, some contact channels prove particularly more expensive than others. This is because they rely on human intelligence and therefore a wage, whereas those that are operated by AI do not. 

Therefore it is no surprise that agent-assisted channels are more costly than AI-powered channels such as AI chatbots. In fact, a study revealed that call handling in the contact centre is significantly more expensive than other channels such as email and self-service channels including chatbots. 12,000% more expensive to be exact. 

A graph showing the approximate cost per contact

However, A large portion of the calls that reach the contact centre are simple, routine questions. The type that has one basic answer and does not require further investigation. Routine queries that are being dealt with in the contact centre are unnecessary costing companies when they could be automated using AI at just a fraction of the costs of call handling.  

2. High Call Volumes Lead To Long Wait Times

Contact centres are designed to provide customers access to support when they need resolutions to complex issues. This category of issue is complicated and requires human discretion and emotional understanding – traits that cannot be replicated by AI.  

So when phone lines become unnecessarily congested with an influx of routine queries – queries that have been misrouted – wait time is affected.  

Long wait times cause frustration amongst customers, particularly for those that have complex issues that cannot be resolved using other contact channels. The knock-on effect of which can often reflect negatively in CSAT ratings. 

3. Telephony Is Not Everyone’s Preferred Contact Channel 

For many customers, picking up the phone is not the preferred contact channel. In a study, 73% said they prefer to solve issues themselves using a company website or self-service method. 

Therefore if self-service is not included within your customer service offering, is difficult to navigate to or does not work effectively, there is a risk that CX will be affected. Particularly when so many have busy lifestyles and don’t have the time to sit on hold, waiting for the line to become clear. 

4. Disjointed Journeys Lead To Poor CX 

Rarely is the user journey that involves telephony ever smooth. First, the user must source the correct contact number, wait on hold to speak to an agent, explain their query, only to be told that they will be transferred to another department where they must repeat their query. 

This is not a smooth journey, nor will it result in positive CX. This disjointed type of journey leaves customers feeling undervalued and frustrated which is when they will begin to consider switching to a competitor, impacting customer retention and loyalty. 

How To Deflect Calls With An AI Chatbot

Implementing an AI chatbot into your customer service ecosystem is an effective way to deflect calls to the contact centre. Built using AI, a chatbot automates routine queries and tasks, eliminating the need for users to pick up the phone, therefore reducing support costs. 

This is how it works. Once a user lands on a certain page, the AI chatbot intercepts, asking if they need help with anything. When the user types in their routine query, the chatbot utilises advanced Natural Language Processing (NLP), unpicking the query, analysing each component to understand its intent. 

Here is where sophisticated algorithms match the query with intent sets and present the user with the most relevant results. All of this is done via AI, removing any human involvement and drastically reducing the cost in which it would otherwise take to handle. 

Not only this but those that prefer to self-service are satisfied, the user journey is streamlined, resulting in positive CX and for those that have genuine, complex issues, the phone line is far less congested, meaning queries can be dealt with efficiently. 

What Else Does A Deflection Bot Do? 

Traditionally, self-service channels such as chatbots were associated with the post-purchase segment of the buyer cycle, in particular helping customers with any issues they may have with the product or service they had purchased. However, more recently, chatbots are being used to assist in earlier stages of the buyer process. 

An AI chatbot doubles up as a lead generation tool when implemented correctly. Not only does it have lead capture capabilities through its intelligent forms function, but you can configure chatbots to intercept the user journey during critical touchpoints, converting site visitors into hot leads. 

Custom triggers are configured to launch the chatbot when certain conditions are met, for example on the cart page or when a certain amount of time has been spent on a product page. By proactively offering help during these critical moments, users have the opportunity to ask any last-minute questions, encouraging lead generation and conversions. 

An image showing Xan Chatbot launching after a certain amount of time, proactively offering help to a customer

If you enjoyed this article and would like to learn more about call deflection through AI chatbots, check out our guide, here. If you would like any assistance choosing a chatbot that is right for your business, please get in touch here. 

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An infographic showing statistics and facts about how synthetix helped a major utility company reduce call volume and chat times.

How Synthetix Helped Major Utility Company Significantly Reduce Call Volume And Chat Times

Posted on | by Áine McInerney

Case Study

How Synthetix Helped Major Utility Company Significantly Reduce Call Volume And Chat Times

Working together from 2009, our Utility customer continues to provide excellent CX through a blend of Synthetix’s self-service and agent-assisted customer service channels. 

Download Case Study PDF
An infographic showing statistics and facts about how synthetix helped a major utility company reduce call volume and chat times.

Company Profile

Case study icon used to show employees

3,000
Employees

Case study icon used to show customers

Serving 1.4 Million
Homes & Businesses

Case study multilingual icon

Multilingual
customer service

Reducing Calls And Chat Duration Whilst Boosting Customer Satisfaction

The customer experience was streamlined as a result of self-service channels that included multichannel capabilities and smooth escalation to agent-assisted channels – all of which contributed to high customer satisfaction. 

Case study call deflection icon

28% Call
Deflection Rate

By providing customers with the tool to effectively self-serve, of those that used it, the number of phone calls regarding routine queries dropped, resulting in a reduction in contact centre costs.

case study time reduction icon

Live chat duration was reduced by 16%

Synthetix live chat integrates with Identification & Verification (ID&V) software and harnessed its predictive AI suggestions to reduce chat duration.
case study multilingual icon

Multilingual
self-service

Providing multilingual support, catering to many audiences’ language needs and improving customer satisfaction.

case study csat score

Customers ranked the overall experience as a 9.2/10

The implementation of self-service software enhances the customer journey, improves CX and helps to maintain good customer satisfaction. 

How would you have contacted us if live chat wasn't available?

The implementation of self-service software enhances the customer journey, improves CX and helps to maintain good customer satisfaction.

A pie chart showing how expensive different call methods are, with phone being the most expensive and then emails

Across the industry, calls and emails can be 6 and 2.5 times as expensive as live chat respectively. As a general rule, prioritising live chat over these channels is a cost saving mechanism. 

Our Journey Together

2009
FAQ Self-Service Tool Launched

Our client chose Synthetix’s self-service software, Knowledge: For Your Customers to help manage customer contact, improve CX and reduce agent-assisted customer service interactions. 

2012
Live Chat And Intelligent Knowledge Base Deployed

In 2012, our Utility client implemented our live chat and internal agent knowledge software to quickly and directly solve customers’ online queries more efficiently than over the phone. 

2020
Multilingual Chatbot Implemented

To help serve their audiences effectively, our client deployed Synthetix’s customer service chatbot, Xan with multilingual capabilities.  

2022
Genesys Contact Centre Software Integration
A wireframe of a major utility company knowledge for your teams Synthetix product

To help better serve its customers through the contact centre, Synthetix integrated our intelligent knowledge base software, Knowledge: For Your Team, with Genesys' contact centre technology. 

Now
A wireframe of a major utility company xan chatbot product

Our Utility client continues to deliver excellent CX through the utilisation of Synthetix’s customer service tools. 

You've come this far...

Arrange a full demonstration of Synthetix software with our friendly business development team, who will answer all of your questions about our award-winning digital customer engagement solutions.

Ready? Let’s talk.

Contact Us
An infographic showing statistics and facts about how synthetix helped Yorkshire Building Society deliver excellent CX for the past 17 years.

Yorkshire Building Society And Synthetix: 17 Years Of Delivering Excellent CX

Posted on | by Áine McInerney

Case Study

Yorkshire Building Society And Synthetix: 17 Years Of Delivering Excellent CX

One of the UK’s largest building societies, Yorkshire Building Society provides financial services online, over the phone and via their 240 locations. Yorkshire Building Society deploys Synthetix’s customer service chatbot, self-service tools and live chat across its brand portfolio to streamline online CX and boost CSAT. 

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An infographic showing statistics and facts about how synthetix helped Yorkshire Building Society deliver excellent CX for the past 17 years.

Company Profile

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£45 Billion
in assets

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240
Locations

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3.5 Million
Members

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3 Million
Customers

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4
Brands

“The technology and service provided by Synthetix has made a tangible improvement on our efficiency as a business and helped us deliver a better experience for our customers. “ 

- Debbie Hill, Change Manager (eCommerce) 

Our Journey Together

2005
Customer Service Chatbot Deployed
A wireframe of the YBS Xan Chatbot product

A client since 2005, Yorkshire Building Society chose Synthetix to deploy their customer service chatbot. It would be used as a virtual mortgage advisor, guiding customers through their online journeys and resolving queries in the process. 

2010
FAQ Software Launched
A Chart for Yorkshire Building Society displaying the results of contact 1 month after implementing Synthetix Products
  • In 2010, they adopted Synthetix’s self-service software. Built using AI and harnessing powerful Natural Language Processing, the software automated routine queries online, improving CX. 
  • With our self-service software, they experienced, from their site visitors, a 30% reduction in inbound calls and a 53% reduction in emails. 
2010
FAQ Software Deployed To New Brand
A Chart for Barnsley Building Society displaying the results of contact 1 month after implementing Synthetix Products
  • Soon after, Synthetix’s self-service solution was deployed to Barnsley Building Society, whereof those that visited their website, a 41% reduction in calls and 30% reduction in emails took place. 
  • This solution was also rolled out to Chelsea Building Society and Norwich & Peterborough Building Society
2014
Live Chat Software Implemented
A wireframe of the YBS Synthetix Chat design

Yorkshire Building Society added live chat to their multi-channel customer service offering in 2014, followed by their subsidiary brand, Accord Mortgages. This allowed the seamless escalation from self-service channels for instances where human intervention is required to solve a query. 

 

2021
AI Chatbot Adopted By New Brand
A wireframe of YBS Can Chatbot design

In 2021, Accord Mortgages, a brand of Yorkshire Building Society’s, introduced a customer service chatbot to help brokers resolve queries online

Now
The product icons for Synthetix products; For your Customers, Chat and Xan Chatbot

Our client continues to deliver exceptional CX and customer service online with the help of Synthetix’s products. 

You've come this far...

Arrange a full demonstration of Synthetix software with our friendly business development team, who will answer all of your questions about our award-winning digital customer engagement solutions.

Ready? Let’s talk.

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An infographic showing statistics and facts about how synthetix helped a financial services provide achieve contact reduction.

How Financial Services Provider Achieved Significant Contact Reduction With Synthetix Tools ​

Posted on | by Áine McInerney

Case Study

How Financial Services Provider Achieved Significant Contact Reduction With Synthetix Tools ​

Synthetix began working with one of the UK’s leading Financial Services providers in 2014, with goals to deflect routine queries to self-service channels and enhance CX. Since then they have implemented our CX suite including FAQ tools, chatbot, live chat and SEO-friendly help centre. 

Download Case Study PDF
An infographic showing statistics and facts about how synthetix helped a financial services provide achieve contact reduction.

Company Profile

Case study icon used to show employees

1,500
Employees

Case study icon used to show customers

2.5 Million
Customers

Case study icon used to show 3 brands

3
Brands

Trustpilot
4.3 Excellent

Score taken March 2022

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Self-Service Outcomes

A diagram to demonstrate how our clients’ customers are assigned to the most efficient self-service channels to improve their experiences and reduce the burden on the contact centre.
A Sankey diagram displaying the volume of contact channels

Our Journey Together

2014
Self-Service Software Is Deployed

Our Financial Services client deployed Synthetix’s self-service software, Knowledge: For Your Customers to help handle its brands' common queries and questions.

2016
Live Chat Implementation

In 2016, Synthetix implemented live chat for our client, providing direct, agent-assisted support to its customers. 

2018
Live Chat And FAQs Adopted By New Brand

Our client later extended Synthetix’s live chat software and FAQ tool to a new brand, contributing to contact reduction and CX. 

2020
Customer Service Chatbot Introduced
A wireframe showing the Synthetix Agent Chat screen

In 2020, Synthetix launched a customer service chatbot for our client and its subsidiary brand, with seamless escalation to Live Chat for customers who require advanced support.

As part of their pandemic response to supporting remote work, they shifted many telephone agents to their live chat channel. Chat volumes grew 320% over this period.

2021
SEO Help Centre Was Launched
A wireframe displaying what Synthetix FAQ product looks like

We implemented an SEO-friendly help centre solution into our client’s customer service offering. By translating knowledge articles into crawlable web pages, customers can self-serve directly from Google’s search results.

After just one month, our client saw their FAQ articles ranking on the first page of Google search engine results, helping to minimise the steps in the user journey and boost CX.

Now
The product icons for Synthetix products; For your Customers, Chat and Xan Chatbot

Now using Synthetix’s AI-powered, digital CX platform, our client reaps the benefits of routine query automation and enhanced CX. 

You've come this far...

Arrange a full demonstration of Synthetix software with our friendly business development team, who will answer all of your questions about our award-winning digital customer engagement solutions.

Ready? Let’s talk.

Contact Us