CONTACT CENTER PIPELINE
Q: DO YOU THINK, THEN, THAT CHATGPT/GPT-4
COULD REVOLUTIONIZE THE CONTACT CENTER
INDUSTRY, GIVEN THE CHALLENGES LIKE ENSUR-
ING A HIGH QUALITY COMPETITIVE CX AND COP-
ING WITH STAFFING SHORTAGES? OR DO YOU
SEE IT MORE LIKE AN EVOLUTIONARY MOVE?
A: GPT-4 has the capacity to revolutionize the contact cen-
ter industry, yet reaching that goal will be a slow and evolu-
tionary process. Its potential to improve customer experience
(CX) by automating certain customer interactions, helping
with staffing shortages, and providing multilingual, round-
the-clock contact center support – all at reduced costs, is
nothing less than revolutionary.
However, before contact center agents can relinquish the
handling of routine tasks to GPT-4 so they can become more
efficient and focus on more complex interactions, various
challenges must be resolved, certain risks must be mitigated,
and a new level of trust in GPT-4’s responses will be neces-
sary. This will be an evolutionary process for the contact cen-
ter industry which could take up to two – five years.
AVAILABILITY AND SUPPLIERS
Q: WHEN DO YOU EXPECT CHATGPT/GPT-4 TO BE
READY FOR PRIME TIME? WHAT NEEDS TO BE
DONE AT THIS STAGE TO MAKE IT USABLE IN THE
CONTACT CENTER?
A: ChatGPT was initially developed as a high-end natural lan-
guage processor specifically designed to be used in contact
centers.
Currently, the technology is still undergoing beta testing
and evaluation, as developers work towards making it ready
for prime-time use. My estimation is that ChatGPT technol-
ogy will be appropriate for contact centers within the next
two to five years, but it will require extensive supervision and
act as a supplement to human associates.
To make ChatGPT optimally functional within customer
service operations, developers need to invest further in in-
creasing the accuracy of the AI’s natural language generation
capabilities and improving the overall quality of its simulated
conversational interaction with customers. They also need to
optimize its classification and object recognition performance.
Despite these challenges, careful handling of GPT-4 can un-
lock tremendous value for both users and providers by im-
proving efficiency and increasing the effectiveness of com-
munication strategies.
Q: COMPARE AND CONTRAST CHATGPT WITH OTH-
ER CUSTOMER AND ALSO INTERNAL EMPLOYEE
CHAT TECHNOLOGIES. DOES IT SUPPLEMENT OR
SUPPLANT OTHER CHAT TOOLS?
A: ChatGPT stands out from other available tools. Its features
make it more efficient than traditional customer service mes-
saging platforms.
For example, GPT-4’s NLP enables it to better understand
customer needs and respond quickly to requests. Addition-
ally, its capacity for personalized conversations allows com-
panies to provide more targeted customer care in real-time.
Many existing chat technologies still rely on simple scripts
and pre-programmed generic responses, which do not add
value to the conversation.
GPT-4 is uniquely positioned to supplement or even sup-
plant certain aspects of existing internal chat technologies
while improving overall efficiency. This makes it a highly
valuable tool for customers and employees alike (see chart).
Q: WHAT TYPES OF CUSTOMER INTERACTIONS: B2B
OR B2C, WILL CHATGPT PROVIDE THE MOST BEN-
EFITS OR CONVERSELY THE LEAST AND WHY?
A: I do not think there will be a huge difference in the way
ChatGPT will handle B2B and B2C customer interactions, so
the benefits it brings to contact center interactions for both
customer types will be similar.
GPT-4’s responses will be highly dependent on the type of
interactions it is exposed to. It will be good at responding to
simple interactions but will be less capable of offering appro-
priate responses to emotional issues that require the more
nuanced understanding that only human agents can provide.
Both B2B and B2C contact centers handle a full range of
simple and complex issues, so I anticipate that contact cen-
ter interactions for both customer types will benefit equally
from GPT-4.
GPT-4 HAS THE CAPACITY TO
REVOLUTIONIZE THE
CONTACT CENTER INDUSTRY,
YET REACHING THAT GOAL
WILL BE A SLOW AND
EVOLUTIONARY PROCESS.