Over the past few years, our dependence on the digital sphere has dramatically increased, particularly in the way we communicate with businesses. From email and web chats to WhatsApp and traditional phone calls, these mediums of communication have significantly diversified. This shift towards digital platforms brings along its own challenges that our current systems are not equipped to handle efficiently, the difficulties of staffing digital contact centers being paramount among them.
We've grown accustomed to phone operators handling one client at a time, but in the digital world, employees are often handling multiple interactions across different platforms, all at once. Existing systems are not designed to handle this multi-tasking effort by agents, leading to understaffing or overstaffing issues. If understaffed, customers receive poor service; if overstaffed, resources are wasted. Furthermore, the pressure of multitasking can create a stressful work environment for employees, negatively impacting their productivity and overall job satisfaction.
Recently published patent no US20230297909A1, proposed by the company 'Nice', is created to address these issues. The patent highlights a new system, enacted on a computer, which uses the timing of two sets of data to make predictions about changes in 'service metrics'.
This system uses 'historical data', which essentially means using information from the past to help predict future outcomes. Here's what it does: it takes two different sets of information, feeds this into a new tool that predicts what changes might happen, then sends these predictions back to the computer.
Implementing this system can have impressive effects on how resource optimization is handled in the future. It might lead to efficient distribution of work and hence, a well-balanced work environment for operators in contact centers. By predicting and addressing the staffing requirement changes, the system can alleviate staffing issues, improve the customer experience, reduce business costs, and ease the psychological burden on agents.
Moreover, the system believes in 'tenant-specific data' which means learning and developing recommendations based on the specific data of a company. This approach would make the system adaptable to different types of businesses and their unique needs.
Visualizing the future post this patent’s implementation, we can imagine a scenario where businesses that use digital communication channels can operate more smoothly. Customer service agents may find their workload more manageable, and the quality of service provided to customers can increase.
However, it's also essential to bear in mind the limitations of these projections. As of now, this patented technology is just on paper. While it heralds an exciting prospect for both businesses and their customers, it's uncertain when, or indeed if, this technology will become widely available on the market. The world of patents often holds the promise of exciting technological advancements, but it's equally important to remember that not every patented idea makes it to our daily lives.