Covid accelerated contact centre digitalisation, but Australia still lags says Auscontact chief

The trend to digitalise the customer contact centre has escalated as a result of the Covid pandemic, but the adoption of AI tools is still lower in Australia than in the US and Asian markets.

Digital Nation Australia spoke to Fiona Keough, CEO of Auscontact Association, the only not-for-profit organisation with a focus on supporting the contact centre landscape in the country.

According to Keough, “When we surveyed the equivalent of about 23,000 people in mid-2021, we actually found that the automation or AI adoption rate was relatively low comparative to more mature markets.”

Where AI and automation has been adopted, she said the focus has been on transactional interactions, where a human interface is not initially required. This, however, means that by the time a human is required to serve a customer, the interaction is often inherently more complex.

“When I started, someone would say, ‘How much money do I have in my bank account?’ And I'd say ‘You’ve got XYZ’ and then, ‘Is there anything else I can help you with?’, and then the call would be over. When the agent is talking to the customer or the client now, they've gotten past that point and they're now saying ‘I dispute that. I refute that. I want to know more. Why is it this? Why is it that?’,” said Keough.

“They're literally ringing up to, and I mean this in the nicest possible way, and I'm exaggerating of course, to tear shreds. Not off the individual, but tear shreds off the organisation. But you're the human in the middle of it.”

Copping negative interactions with dissatisfied customers can have a profound effect on the agent’s mental health and wellbeing, which according to Keough, has only been exacerbated in a world of remote work.

“When you are all sitting together and you could see somebody else in the contact centre, there was somebody that could immediately empathise or your team leader could walk up to you and say, ‘You know what, take a break. I just overheard that, you really need to take five for yourself’,” she said.

The problem with remote work, is that managers and team members aren’t within earshot of such conversations, and must instead rely on wellbeing training, giving agents the skills to recognise when their mental health is under strain.

This is what the “best-in-class” contact centres are investing in, she added.