In Conversation: How Agent Copilot Bots Deliver AI Business Outcomes

In today’s contact centers, agent copilots are revolutionizing efficiency and customer experience. Kelly Koelliker, VP of Content Marketing at Verint, and Donna Fluss, Founder and President of DMG Consulting, discuss how these AI-driven tools enhance agent performance and increase capacity. 

Agent copilots, also known as agent assist, may include capabilities such as real-time guidance (RTG), next-best-action (NBA), and post-interaction summarization. These tools provide agents with real-time support, improving their ability to assist customers effectively and efficiently. 

Donna highlights the enthusiastic response from agents, who appreciate the bots’ ability to handle repetitive administrative tasks, allowing them to focus on more complex customer interactions. She also discusses the significant benefits for businesses, such as improved productivity, enhanced customer and agent experiences, and reduced average handle times. 

This conversation provides valuable insights into how best to implement agent copilot bots in the contact center to drive business outcomes and elevate customer experience.  

Kelly: Now you guys listening have probably heard a little bit about agent copilots in the contact center and how they can help increase your agent capacity.

So today we’re going to chat about this topic to help you understand what this is and how it might help you. So Donna, let’s start right at the very beginning. What is an agent copilot?

Donna: An agent copilot is a product or application that is designed to assist and augment what the agent does. So, another name for agent copilot is agent assist, and there are a number of applications that fall into this category.

Classically, it includes the following three applications, and sometimes it includes more. The three are RTG, real time guidance, NBA, not the basketball league, but next-best-action, and then the third is automated post interaction summarization.

Kelly: Great. And, like you said, all these solutions that help agents, in Verint speak, are our Coaching Bot, our Wrap Up Bot, our Knowledge Automation Bot, or even the Smart Transfer Bot that helps pass context from the intelligent virtual assistant to the live agent.

So, it’s all these different applications that we roll into Agent Copilot Bots. So, we have these tools then that are helping the agents, but how do the agents really feel about it? Do they like these copilots?

Donna: The agents are really excited about these copilots or agent assist products because these are products that are designed for them.

They’re designed to augment what they do. So, now agents can spend their time helping customers instead of looking for information. And when it comes to automated post interaction summarization, the agents no longer have to do the wrap up. So, they are finding these solutions to be very valuable. 

Kelly: That’s great. And we want happy agents. That’s fantastic. But as businesses, they also want to see hard outcomes and results. So, can you talk about from a business perspective, what are the outcomes that organizations can expect to see by implementing these copilot bots?

Donna: There are so many very clear outcomes and benefits from these solutions, and each one has its own set of benefits.

The three we’ve been talking about, and the other ones from Verint, as well, deliver on the primary categories [of contact center performance]. They improve the customer experience, they improve the agent’s experience by making it easier for them to do their job by giving them the information, and they improve productivity.

“They improve the customer experience, they improve the agent’s experience by making it easier for them to do their job by giving them the information, and they improve productivity.”

Donna Fluss, Founder and President, DMG Consulting

So they’re very, very valuable. When it comes to automated post interaction summarization, for example, across the industry, we’re seeing reductions in average handle time of somewhere between 20 to 40%. It’s very, very significant.

When it comes to automated post interaction summarization, I mentioned that it improves the employee experience. Agents signed up to help customers—they did not sign up to write summaries. But that’s just a piece of the benefits delivered by these applications.

From the customer perspective, they deliver a good and clear summary. So, if for some reason the customer has to follow up again, the agent has a full summary of the prior discussion, so the customer doesn’t have to repeat everything again. So, this is a win across the board.

“Agents signed up to help customers. They did not sign up to write summaries.”

Donna Fluss, Founder and President, DMG Consulting

Kelly: Yeah, that’s what we’re seeing as well. We call it CX automation, the ability to reduce costs while simultaneously elevating the customer experience, which that’s really what everyone wants. So these sound great, but how do you get started? What do you recommend as the first place to start on these projects?

Donna: Well, when it comes to getting started with any new project, but in particular when it comes to AI—which is new to a lot of organizations—I suggest that companies start small and then build it out.

So, regarding which product to start with, my recommendation in most cases is to start with automated post interaction summarization, because it’s really a proven entity for a lot of organizations.

“…my recommendation in most cases is to start with automated post interaction summarization, because it’s really a proven entity for a lot of organizations.”

Donna Fluss, Founder and President, DMG Consulting

And, I suggest that organizations start with 10, 20, 30 agents so they can work out whatever has to be addressed, and then roll it out. Now, once you have one great success, and you’re very likely to with automated post interaction summarization, then you can use that to continue and bring in the next product.

You’re going to gain a lot of credibility by succeeding with the first one, which can then help keep the motion going. 

Kelly: That makes sense. Well, thanks so much for your amazing insights as always. It’s great to speak with you and thank you for your time.

Donna: My pleasure.