• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, February 10, 2025

AI agents will rapidly become the next customer-service support system for brands -- mainly because the technology has the ability to teach the platform how best to support customers. And that will change personalization across industries forever.

Agents integrate with CRM systems and other business applications to ensure access to all the information needed to personalize services and understand individual preferences and behaviors.

“The best contact center experience is the one that never happens,” Vinod Muthukrishnan, vice president and chief operating officer at Webex Customer Experience Solutions, Cisco, told MediaPost. “Traditionally, customer engagement and communication has been viewed as an operational or marketing activity, while customer experience has been seen as a contact center issue.”

When customer engagement and customer experience come together, it becomes clear that many reasons for customers reaching out to the contact center no longer need to occur.

There is a link between customer satisfaction and effective self-service tools, according to a global study conducted by Cisco. For example, rebooking a flight or replacing a lost credit card typically requires live agent support, leading to long queues and hold times, multiple transfers, frustrated customers and agent burnout.

Some 82% of companies intend to integrate AI agents within one to three years, according to the study. There is a level of trust in AI agents for specific tasks such as generating work emails, coding, and data analysis, but Muthukrishnan said AI will allow contact center agents to focus on more complex interactions.

“Virtual agents have been used by the customer service industry for years, but until the more recent introduction of AI and large language models they have been largely unhelpful at resolving customer issues unless the exact scenario was programmed into the system,” Muthukrishnan said. “With the introduction of AI agents, businesses can now have an always-on, highly intelligent, bi-directional virtual agent that supports text and voice interactions.”

The multimodal virtual agent will serve as the initial point of contact around the clock, rather than restricted typical operating hours.

“Such a feature is indispensable for any contact center aiming to enhance customer engagement and satisfaction,” Muthukrishnan said.

For example, AI agents supported in platforms like Webex can prevent customers from waiting in a call queue and enable businesses to assist customers 24 hours a day at a significantly lower cost per serve.

Implementing AI agents requires an initial investment, he said, but the long-term benefits for both employees and customers can lead to significant business advantages.

Even for use cases that require a human touch, the time to answer can be greatly reduced. This use of AI ultimately leads to reduced handling times and improved customer retention, he said.

Last year, Webex announced AI agents that automate contact-center inquiries with conversational intelligence for quick and effective resolution of issues.

Data privacy and security in AI-driven customer service solutions are built in.

Webex believes privacy and security are not afterthoughts or bolt-on features. They are part of the fabric of how products are developed.

Encryption protocols adhere to strict compliance standards to safeguard customer data. AI-driven solutions are designed with privacy and security at their core to ensure that customer interactions are secure and remain confidential.