Everyone has experienced cringeworthy CX. Whether it’s a chatbot that can’t understand your question, an endless interactive voice response system that demands you “listen carefully, for our menu options have changed,” or a chain of human agents that ask you to repeat your issue over and over again, it’s more common than most of us would like — especially within government agencies.

You’re likely already aware of this unfortunate reputation. You’re also aware of the increased pressure and scrutiny you’re under to deliver your life-impacting services. The good news is that recent advancements in artificial intelligence have made it more possible than ever to deliver seamless, secure, exceptional CX. The bad news is that some problems can actually be made worse with AI.

In the race to improve CX with AI, it can be easy to get lost in the frenzy. Before you go all in, you need to understand what you’re trying to solve and how specifically AI can help. Here are three opportunities to consider for AI – and some tips to help you avoid making things worse.

Opportunity #1: Update your automated phone system

If your interactive voice response (IVR) system uses a series of pre-recorded messages, you could be making it more difficult to respond intelligently to customer requests, especially if you are starting to implement AI. Most customers want self-service options that allow them to quickly resolve a problem on their own, but IVR systems aren’t something you can set and forget. Many agencies need to update their scripts to create a more seamless experience that incorporates conversational AI.

With conversational AI, IVR systems can provide real self-service. An IVR built with conversational AI that uses natural language understanding (NLU) can interpret customer inquiries and provide better, more accurate and personalized responses. NLU can also be used to simplify a complicated menu. Instead of listening to a laundry list of every possible query under the sun, customers can simply state their problem and the IVR will either provide an automated answer or connect them to an appropriate agent.

Another AI automation that can help is predictive analytics. With predictive analytics, agencies can forecast peak call times and reduce long wait times by allocating resources accordingly. This is especially important during busy seasons, such as late March/early April for the IRS. With predictive analytics, agencies can use AI to help alleviate frustration.

Opportunity #2: Build a smarter chatbot

Much like a bad IVR system, a chatbot that follows automated scripts can create a frustrating loop. Traditionally, bots respond to a question with a scripted reply based on whatever keywords happen to be in the question. These chatbots are unable to handle more complicated questions and have limited conversational ability.

Replacing your scripted chatbot with one powered by conversational AI comes with a multitude of advantages. Conversational AI chatbots can access data, machine learning and natural language understanding to recognize text inputs, allowing them to engage in more natural and fluid conversations with customers, learn from user interactions and feedback, and “remember” past interactions to provide personalized responses. Connecting that chatbot to your customer relationship management system (CRM) will increase your ability to provide quality answers, or even connect to a secure portal if the information needs to stay behind a password-protected wall.

By applying AI and machine learning to knowledge management, chatbots can access vast amounts of information, provide more accurate responses, and even improve responses over time. An AI chatbot can also recognize when a customer inquiry is too complex for the chatbot to handle and transfer the call to a live agent.

And speaking of live agents…

Opportunity #3: Solve staffing challenges

AI has the potential to help you optimize staffing in your contact center. Stressors like high call volumes, lack of proper tools or coaching, and being inundated with mundane, repetitive tasks can all lead to agent frustration and burn out. Government agencies need to be good stewards of their resources, including their people, and AI can help by improving efficiency and productivity.

With conversational AI handling the easy answers, human agents can focus on handling more complex challenges. The same data that informs the conversational AI can provide these agents with an interactive reference that draws on knowledge bases, manuals and other internal resources to help them deliver answers quickly. And AI-driven conversation summarization can capture relevant details and free agents to focus on the call.

Finally, if an agent needs to be re-trained or upskilled to take on a different role, AI can help accelerate that process. All of these activities help improve the employee experience, equipping agents to be much more effective, productive and satisfied with their work.

Ready to implement AI? Do this before you start

It’s true that automating aspects of your contact center can help reduce costs while increasing employee and customer satisfaction. But not every agency will have the same starting point. You’ll need to take your agency’s AI readiness into consideration before diving in, and you’ll also need to ensure that data is accessible, knowledge base information is properly organized, and everything is built to scale effectively in the future.

If you’re not equipped to audit all of this on your own, choosing a partner with a strong foundation in CX principles and a firm understanding of the technology required to implement AI can be an effective strategy. They’ll work with you to understand your current customer experience — from the back-end technology that makes it all possible, to the front-end experience that your agency delivers — as well as your vision for the future. Then, they can help you make it happen.

Imagine a future where your agency can fulfill its mission in a way that is easy, seamless and streamlined. Imagine the people you serve receiving the life-changing services you provide and walking away grateful, rather than frustrated. With properly-implemented AI, that vision can become a reality. The secret to success is knowing the right place to start.

Megan Eunpu is Vice President, Digital Sales, Federal, at TTEC Digital, a global leader in customer experience orchestration, combining technology and empathy at the point of conversation.

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