CX technology experts at CX Consulting Partners have identified strategic opportunities for contact centers to capitalize on growing customer comfort with virtual agents, using this shift to streamline internal operations, reduce manual workloads, and enhance overall service efficiency.
The Era of Conversational Business is Here
The explosive growth of smart speakers and other voice-activated devices in homes is reshaping consumer expectations around how they interact with companies. For organizations that rely on customer service centers (CSCs) as their primary interface, this shift presents an opportunity to innovate with intelligent automation and reimagine the customer experience. By embracing a conversational business model, companies can enhance both customer-facing interactions and internal system workflows.
Today, consumers routinely speak to intelligent assistants at home, in their cars, and on their phones—digital voices are ubiquitous and continue to grow in importance. In the five years since the introduction of voice-activated devices, the market has expanded by over 650%.¹
This widespread adoption is influencing how customers expect to interact with businesses. A recent survey found that 90% of respondents feel comfortable using virtual agents or chatbots to expedite service interactions.² In response, 80% of companies are already using or planning to implement virtual agents within their customer service operations.³
A Lagging Operating Model
Despite this progress, many customer service operations remain outdated. The traditional model often results in poor experiences: customers may wait on hold, repeat their information to multiple agents, or leave without resolution. Poor agent training, limited access to customer data, and fragmented systems contribute to delays and errors, leading to customer dissatisfaction and, ultimately, churn.
These pain points impact more than just efficiency—they damage brand reputation, drive up operational costs, and push customers toward competitors. Long wait times, inconsistent service, and unresolved issues are simply unacceptable in today’s experience-driven economy.
The Pressure is Mounting
Contact centers are under increasing pressure. Legacy operating models are especially vulnerable during spikes in demand, prompting frustrating messages like, “We are experiencing higher-than-normal call volumes.”
Based on deep industry experience, the team at CX Consulting Partners has identified key challenges that prevent progressive transformation in customer service operations:
- Complex Processes: A wide range of products and customer segments—from consumers to SOHOs to large enterprises—leads to overly complex workflows.
- Legacy Systems: Many contact centers operate across multiple systems, often outdated, making change both difficult and costly.
- Labor-Intensive Operations: High dependency on agents with varying levels of training, skill, and knowledge results in elevated costs and inconsistent service.
Fragmentation Fuels Inefficiency
Years of tactical investments and outsourcing have created a patchwork of partially automated systems. These fragmented efforts have failed to deliver meaningful business process reengineering. Organizations need a strategic, top-down view to identify root causes and determine where intelligent automation can have the most impact.
A Strategic Approach to Transformation
Technology should not lead the transformation—it must follow strategy. The first step is defining a strategic vision for how customer service should operate in the future. Once this is established, technology becomes a critical enabler of that vision.
CX Consulting Partners recommends focusing on four essential pillars:
- End-to-End Process Review: Identify bottlenecks and inefficiencies across the customer journey.
- Data-Driven Workflow Optimization: Leverage customer interaction data to streamline operations.
- Technology Alignment: Adapt and integrate technology around the reimagined processes.
- Agent Engagement: Involve call center teams throughout the transformation—they are key to long-term success.
Transformation Anchored in Business Outcomes
While efficiency is often the core goal, other business benefits include improved quality, customer satisfaction, loyalty, and ultimately, retention. For example, automating first-contact resolution through virtual agents can cut operational costs and deliver a more consistent experience.
A successful digital transformation of the customer service operating model requires a business-led, technology-enabled approach. CX Consulting Partners’ work with clients identifies three focus areas for this transformation:
- Speech and Advanced Analytics
To improve service quality and satisfaction, organizations must understand root causes behind customer interactions. AI-powered speech analytics makes it feasible to record and mine 100% of customer calls, identifying sentiment, tone, and intent in real time. - Intelligent Automation with RPA
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) reduces manual tasks, shortens call-handling times, and decreases errors. CX Consulting Partners typically identifies 50–70% of interactions that can be automated—and in some cases, up to 100% with AI-enhanced solutions. - Virtual Agents and Conversational AI
Next-generation virtual agents now handle both voice and text inputs with AI-powered comprehension, execution, and response capabilities. These tools not only meet customer preferences but also reduce wait times and free up human agents for complex tasks.
From Back Office to Real-Time Resolution
New technology enables a shift from delayed back-office handling to real-time front-office resolution. CX Consulting Partners emphasizes the need for deep analysis of front- and back-office workflows to fully optimize these interactions and achieve first-contact resolution at scale.
Artificial Intelligence as a Core Enabler
CX Consulting Partners integrates AI across all components of intelligent automation:
- Speech and Text Analytics: Real-time voice recognition, sentiment analysis, and compliance auditing via AI tools.
- Process Automation: AI identifies repeatable workflows suitable for RPA, streamlining end-to-end service delivery.
- Conversational Agents: Modern virtual agents offer natural, intelligent conversations—whether by text or voice—and perform real-time actions based on user intent.
Client engagements with CX Consulting Partners show that CSCs can automate approximately 40 standard business tasks—ranging from billing queries to service activations—leading to measurable efficiency gains.
Results That Matter
Applied across the full operating model, intelligent automation improves customer satisfaction and operational metrics alike. Metrics from CX Consulting Partners’ client projects consistently demonstrate shorter resolution times, reduced operating costs, and stronger customer loyalty.
