AWS wants businesses to abandon their contact centre infrastructure and move it to the cloud. To win them over, it has rolled out Amazon Connect, a cloud-based contact centre product, which promises rapid setup, consumption-based pricing and AI-powered functionality.
“Contact centres have been slower to move to the cloud than other businesses because the technology has been harder,” Pasquale DeMaio, vice president, customer experience services, AWS + Amazon Connect told Customer Experience Magazine.
With Amazon Connect, AWS aims to upset the preverbal contact centre applecart. It believes its cloud-based contact centres can compete with the installed base in terms of scale and functionality, and at a more competitive price point.
Moving big corporate call centres to the cloud
“We are moving some of the largest contact centres in the world to the cloud. People pick us because of our enterprise readiness,” said DeMaio.
“We win disproportionately large on-premises customer contact centres because people are excited about the scale, the security [and] reliability we offer. They know we can deliver for them,” he added.
Amazon Connect’s enterprise pedigree stems from tech it originally developed for its own use. (Like much of the AWS product stable). Initially launched in 2017, AWS has been quietly adding functionality to its contact centre platform. The revamped cloud contact centre was rolled out in mid-March.
Artificial intelligence has been baked into almost every aspect of Amazon Connect, providing a greater degree of automation, while enabling ‘superhuman’ customers agents. A focus on ease of use, and reporting within Connect, allows customer-facing agents to focus on customer experience.
Making agents superhuman
With AI integrated into the call reporting function, contact centre operators can evaluate 100% of call outcomes. “Using AI in every contact, we can make the agent much, much better at their job,” said DeMaio.
The integration of AI will shift conversations away from metrics like average call handling time and to towards adding value.
“I tell CX professionals all the time… what we’re going to do is fundamentally change the relationships [they] have with customers,” said DeMaio.