The technology most communications companies rely on for service is an inefficient mess of systems, whether as a new company or a giant one. Historically, according to Grote, most company resources have gone into building networks, not so much into streamlining all systems across the organisation. This inefficiency is important to address, especially given the huge growth of customer expectations.

For most companies, focusing on building neworks left the service side of the business fragmented and disconnected from a 360-degree view of both the customer and the rest of the business. Two things happen as a result: Customers get frustrated when service agents don’t recognise problems in a timely manner or give them the runaround, and, second, service agents’ time is wasted on manual tasks and “swivel-chairing.” This leads to higher costs and unhappy customers. It’s also time that could be better optimised on higher-value work.

Attempting to optimise and customise each individual system costs companies money. Picking the best marketing solution, the best sales solution, the best technical solution, and then trying to stitch it all together into a customer service application is expensive and time-consuming. That’s true whether it’s building systems internally or going outside the company.

This is where service automation and AI come in: Together they form a cloud-based solution built on a single platform that lets service teams efficiently scale quality service at a lower cost. It means less time spent on tedious tasks and more time spent on improving customer satisfaction and optimising agents’ productivity.