In a hypercompetitive telco market, where many different providers sell the same core products, customer experience continues to be a key differentiator.
With multiple touchpoints that provide opportunities for customers to reconsider their brand choices, providing better customer experience at every interaction is crucial to retaining existing customers and attracting new ones.
Fortunately, there is a way to deliver enhanced customer experiences and maximize every interaction opportunity.
By deploying AI technology that pairs customers and agents on the basis of behavior, Afiniti can help you build better customer experiences, simply through pairing them with the agent they are most likely to connect with. Afiniti’s award-winning Behavioral Pairing algorithms can also build pairings between customers, agents, and offers in inbound, outbound, and digital environments. These three-dimensional pairings ensure customer satisfaction and increase revenue across voice and digital channels.
This level of personalization greatly improves the customer experience and customer satisfaction, elevates sales outcomes, improves customer retention rates, increases cross-sells and upgrades, and impacts customer lifetime value.
Afiniti is currently working with some the world’s biggest telecommunications companies, delivering billions each year as a critical part of their day-to-day operations.
World-leading AI technology with 400+ patents optimizes each interaction
In most contact centers today, as a customer contacts a company, they are typically routed to the next available agent. Afiniti’s pairing solution opens up a whole new world of possibilities that lead to better customer interactions, by going beyond this sequenced routing system.
As agents become free, our AI deploys specialized machine learning techniques to identify agents’ unique interaction histories. In parallel, the technology identifies customers’ histories and likely intent, in order to predict which customer-agent pairing is most likely to result in a successful outcome.
Models are trained and validated to identify predictors and patterns of behavior which can then be implemented in real-time. The patterns enable the algorithms to estimate the probability of success of various potential agent-customer pairs, then select the pair that maximizes the likelihood of a successful interaction.
A measurable business model ensures win-win for all parties involved
These enhanced pairs are determined in part by analyzing information relevant to the context of an interaction — such as the customer’s current bundle, and their reasons for past contacts — to discern which representative is best suited for each individual’s situation, delivering an improved customer experience and a more successful outcome.
On the back end, Afiniti further leverages AI and machine learning techniques to identify overarching conversational patterns. Its algorithms learn and improve over time, analyzing millions of interactions every day. Afiniti works closely with clients, using these observations to continually evolve their customer experience.
Afiniti is also one of the only applied artificial intelligence companies able to precisely measure the results that it delivers to clients. For the entirety of a client’s relationship, Afiniti benchmarks its performance by running its AI algorithms ON and OFF in short time cycles continuously, typically at 80% ON and 20% OFF. By comparing the contact center or client performance during these two time periods, Afiniti is able to demonstrate exactly how much impact it has on interactions.
Working together from deployment and beyond to get the best results
The Afiniti deployment process is led by Afiniti’s Global Deployment and Engineering team. It typically spans 60 to 90 days, and involves close work with the client to ensure optimized performance and the alignment of business objectives.
Afiniti’s deployment experience includes integration with all major telephony, database, and related contact center systems vendors. In most cases, Afiniti’s cooperation and partnership with the provider facilitates a smooth deployment experience.
Furthermore, Afiniti clients do not pay any installation or CapEx costs, and are only charged a percentage of the incremental value gains that Afiniti has delivered.
The benefits of personalization
Consumers expect more from their telecommunications providers. They want frictionless, efficient interactions tailored to their needs and specific context.
With Afiniti’s proven track record of enhancing interactions to add value to some of the largest telecommunications providers in the world, businesses can rest assured that every touchpoint is enhanced with the personalization that matters. By taking each customer’s individual context into account, and matching them with the specific agent who is uniquely positioned to deliver the best service, your customers will have the sort of experience that satisfies, builds positive brand association, and engenders loyalty.
Afiniti has been working with many of the world’s largest telecommunications and media providers since 2011. If your organization is interested in improving the quality of customer interactions too, contact us today.
Inflation is driving up the cost of living across the world, and the US is no exception. This, in turn, is driving up the cost of providing quality coverage and services across the insurance industry.
As inflation continues to raise premiums for policyholders, it similarly compresses margins for providers. This has caused many providers to stop selling in certain states and halt growth altogether.
But what if there was another way to guard against the pressures of inflation and lower comprehensive ratios without putting a stop on the acquisition of new policyholders?
There is, and it starts by using AI to match customers with the agent that they are most likely to click with, and who can use the interaction to deliver customer satisfaction and a more successful business outcome.
By deploying AI to predict patterns in human behavior, Afiniti can pair policyholders with agents on the basis of behavior, enabling better interactions. These intelligent pairs lead to higher customer satisfaction, increased sales and retention, and a level of personalization policyholders have come to expect.
AI pairing at work to transform the quality of conversations
In most contact centers today, as a customer contacts a company, they are typically routed to the next available agent. Afiniti’s pairing solution opens up a whole new world of possibilities, by going beyond this sequenced routing system. As agents become free, our AI deploys specialized machine learning techniques to identify agents’ unique interaction histories. In parallel, the technology identifies customer histories and likely intent, in order to predict which customer-agent pairing is most likely to result in a successful outcome.
Models are trained and validated to identify predictors and patterns of behavior, which can then be implemented in real-time. The patterns enable the algorithms to estimate the probability of success of various potential agent-customer pairs, then select the pair that maximizes the likelihood of success.
Personalize every interaction
These enhanced pairs are determined in part by analyzing information relevant to the context of an interaction — such as policy, geography, premiums paid, and reasons for past contacts — with the specific aim of discerning which agent is best suited for each individual’s situation.
On the back end, Afiniti further leverages AI and machine learning techniques to identify overarching conversational patterns. Its algorithms learn and improve over time, analyzing millions of interactions every day. Afiniti works closely with clients, using these observations to continually evolve their customer experience, delivering even better outcomes.
Afiniti is also one of the few applied artificial intelligence solutions able to precisely measure the results that it delivers to clients. For the entirety of a client’s relationship, Afiniti benchmarks its performance by running its AI algorithms ON and OFF in short time cycles continuously, typically at 80% ON and 20% OFF. By comparing the contact center or client performance during these two time periods, Afiniti is able to demonstrate exactly how much impact it has on interactions.
The beginning of the journey
The Afiniti deployment process is led by Afiniti’s Global Deployment and Engineering team. It typically requires between 60 and 90 days, and involves close work with the client to ensure optimized performance and the alignment of business objectives.
Afiniti’s deployment experience includes integration with all major telephony, database, and related contact center systems vendors. In most cases, Afiniti’s cooperation and partnership with these providers ensure a smooth deployment experience. Furthermore, Afiniti clients do not pay any installation or CapEx costs, and are only charged a percentage of the incremental value gains that Afiniti has delivered.
Satisfy Ideal Customers
Every end customer comes with a certain degree of risk. Using Afiniti’s AI, providers can identify low-risk individuals that any business should want to retain and acquire. By using Afiniti’s pairing to deliver a personalized and enhanced customer experience, providers can enable satisfaction at every opportunity while simultaneously growing their business.
If your organization is interested in improving the quality of your customer experience and sustainably growing your business, please contact us today.
With a predicted downturn on the economic horizon, financial institutions are bracing for potentially difficult times. A rise in delinquencies and higher interest rates have already caused many organizations to make substantial additions to their loan loss reserves, and recent models foretell that this may only be the beginning.
Luckily, there is a way for banks to prepare for the turbulence, and it doesn’t involve losing profit or hiring more collectors. This way simply features a focus on enhancing customer experience, and empowering collectors to have better interactions.
By deploying AI technology that pairs customers and collectors on the basis of behavior, banks can help their collectors connect with customers in a difficult time, achieve more successful outcomes, and build stronger long-term relationships.
Here’s how it works:
Afiniti’s Behavioral Pairing
Unlike other routing systems, such as performance-based routing, AI pairing connects collectors and customers on the basis of best predicted behavioral fit. By deploying machine learning techniques, Afiniti’s AI pairing algorithms utilize customer and agent data to find statistical patterns of behavior.
Models are trained and validated to identify predictors and patterns of behavior which can then be implemented in real-time. The patterns enable the algorithms to estimate the probability of success of various potential collector-customer pairs, then select the pair that maximizes the likelihood of a successful interaction.
These enhanced pairs are determined in part by analyzing information relevant to the context of an interaction — such as a customer’s reason for contacting their bank in the past — with the specific aim of discerning which collector is best suited for each individual’s situation, delivering an improved customer experience and more successful outcomes.
On the back end, Afiniti further leverages AI and machine learning techniques to identify overarching conversational patterns. Its algorithms learn and improve over time, analyzing millions of interactions every day. Afiniti works closely with clients, using these observations to continually evolve their customer experience.
Afiniti is also one of the only applied artificial intelligence companies able to precisely measure the results that it delivers to clients. For the entirety of a client’s relationship, Afiniti benchmarks its performance by running its AI algorithms ON and OFF in short time cycles continuously, typically at 80% ON and 20% OFF. By comparing the contact center or client performance during these two time periods, Afiniti is able to demonstrate exactly how much of an impact it has on interactions.
Customer Experience Enhanced by Empathy
By pairing on the basis of behavioral fit, Afiniti’s technology creates a more personal interaction. In more personal interactions, collectors are better able to provide a crucial ingredient to successful collections conversations: empathy.
Interactions with collectors can be emotionally challenging for the customer. Debt causes financial and emotional stress, a feeling no doubt intensified by the uncertain economic backdrop. This means that empathy is integral to providing a great customer experience, and in helping customers through these difficult times.
But the benefits don’t stop at altruism. By aiding a customer in their time of need, the collector is building trust in the organization, increasing loyalty and lifetime value. Research also shows that leading with empathy is two to three times more effective at progressing the interaction, resulting in improved agent performance and a higher rate of payments received.
But how does Afiniti’s AI pairing technology aid in embedding collections interactions with increased levels of empathy? In short, by facilitating interactions that better serve both parties.
First, it treats each customer as an individual, using AI to tailor the experience to their personal needs. Second, it creates customer-collector pairs that are far more likely to result in a positive outcome. AI-paired customers and collectors are more likely to connect on a human-to-human level, progress the interaction, and achieve the desired results. These results take many forms, including emotional peace and an improved financial life for the customer, and a higher rate of promises-to-pay kept for the bank.
AI-enabled pairing is also more empathetic to the collector, as it puts them in the best position to succeed. When paired with the right customer, collectors are more likely to effectively help people in need, successfully resolve interactions, boost productivity, and achieve satisfaction in their work.
The Beginning Of The Journey
The Afiniti deployment process is led by Afiniti’s Global Deployment and Engineering team. It typically requires between 60 and 90 days, and involves close work with the client to ensure optimized performance and the alignment of business objectives.
Afiniti’s deployment experience includes integration with all major telephony, database, and related contact center systems vendors. In many instances, Afiniti has an active cooperation and partnership with these providers. Furthermore, Afiniti clients do not pay any installation or CapEx costs, and are only charged a percentage of the incremental value gains that Afiniti has delivered.
If your organization is interested in improving the quality of your collections interactions, please contact us today.
LivePerson’s Conversational Cloud and Afiniti’s pairing technology enable an AI-powered personalized experience throughout the customer journey
Customer expectations have greatly shifted in recent years, especially as we’ve moved into “the age of the customer” – a time when brands are expected to anticipate and meet customer needs. And artificial intelligence is a critical tool in achieving those goals.
According to a recent LivePerson survey, 83% of customers prefer brands that let them use messaging conversations to digitally browse, interact, and make purchases. Conversational channels such as text messaging, WhatsApp, iMessage, and others are growing in popularity, with 63% of consumers saying that messaging with a brand makes them feel a deeper personal connection.
Brands have expanded their online shopping and digital channel options, but continue to face challenges with creating more personalized customer service with customer-agent interactions.
That’s why LivePerson and Afiniti have today announced a new strategic partnership to bring AI-powered personalization efforts, featuring customer-agent pairing, to consumers’ digital channels, all through LivePerson’s industry-leading Conversational Cloud™ platform.
This partnership will build better customer-brand engagement by using AI to pair customers and contact center agents based on best fit. Afiniti’s AI pairing technology will be natively integrated with LivePerson’s Conversational Cloud, streamlining deployment, driving revenue for clients, and bringing a more personalized customer experience to millions of people to improve customer satisfaction and customer loyalty.
Ben Evans, Afiniti’s Executive Vice President of Partnerships, and Dan Sincavage, LivePerson’s Senior Vice President of Voice & Global Partnerships, discuss the partnership below.
In your own words, why did Afiniti and LivePerson decide to partner?
Ben: This partnership combines Afiniti and LivePerson’s powerful AI capabilities through a native integration, helping companies improve the agent and customer experience, while driving more revenue.
Not only do we share the goal of helping businesses have better conversations with their customers, but LivePerson’s powerful messaging platform, innovative culture, and drive to deliver a sustainable competitive advantage for its clients have made them an excellent partner for Afiniti.
By partnering with LivePerson, a leader in customer engagement solutions, Afiniti is also able to extend our proven AI pairing technology beyond voice and into messaging on multiple channels.
Dan: At LivePerson, we’re all about creating customer engagement that feels Curiously Human™. That is to say, a customized experience where AI understands customer behavior and intent, connects them to brands across conversational channels, and delivers meaningful outcomes. Afiniti’s goal of pairing people based on individual behavior and interpersonal connection aligns seamlessly with this mission.
By natively integrating Afiniti’s behavioral pairing technology, our platform will help brands deliver even more personalized customer service, delight their customers, drive revenue, and cut costs. The partnership will allow us to create better customer engagement for more brands and their customers across the globe.
You both used the term native integration; tell us more about it.
Ben: At the point in the customer journey a live agent is required, LivePerson’s Conversational Cloud communicates with Afiniti’s pairing solution to determine agent selection. Afiniti’s AI analyzes historical data to identify subtle customer and agent behavioral patterns. By combining this information with real-time agent availability and utilization, the customer is paired with the best agent in milliseconds, resulting in higher customer satisfaction, happier agents, and better commercial outcomes for the brand.
Dan: The integration will be seamless in both synchronous and asynchronous messaging channels, plus offer self-serve audit capabilities to monitor operations for reliability and stability. In short, by integrating directly into our platform, Afiniti brings 16 years of expertise in pairing customers and agents to all of the conversational channels supported by our solution.
Our Conversational Cloud powers nearly a billion conversational interactions per month. Afiniti’s pairing technology is helping us set our sights on even better outcomes for the customers and agents that participate in these conversations on a massive scale.
Dan, what are the specific benefits for joint clients and consumers?
Dan: This strategic partnership will help customers have better conversations with brands on the channels they love using everyday with friends and family. Simply put: they will be more satisfied, and will feel more individually catered to by the brands they are engaging with.
Our joint clients will also unlock even more value from their LivePerson solution, with more tools for their personalization strategy, an array of self-service portals and monitoring options, and seamless deployment, enabled by our close partnership and strong integration. They will be able to optimize any metric prioritized by their business strategy across sales, service, and retention.
Furthermore, Afiniti’s continuous ON/OFF benchmarking will ensure precise measurement of the value delivered through pairings, while the native integration will provide a seamless and fast setup. Plus, a pay-for-performance model means clients will be charged only a share of the value that LivePerson and Afiniti deliver together.
Lastly, what does the timeline look like for the deployment of this partnership for a customized experience?
Ben: This announcement is the first step in a multi-year relationship. We are currently targeting GA in early 2023, with a strong pipeline of early access clients in development.
Both LivePerson and Afiniti will work closely with clients from discovery to implementation. Clients can expect the deployment process to take about 16 weeks, and once deployed, we’ll provide ongoing, global post-launch support.
If you are an existing Afiniti or LivePerson client and interested in becoming an early access customer for this integration, please reach out to your current relationship manager.
With AI playing such an important role in digital transformation, ensuring it is used in smart and safe ways is critical
Digital and data-led advancement is at the heart of today’s business transformation, and AI technology, increasingly helping organisations deliver innovative services, is the key to this evolution. So, when Google made headlines recently after an engineer claimed an AI chatbot had become sentient, shockwaves rippled through the global business community.
Whether sentient AI truly exists or not is a distraction. What this hyped news story highlights is the increasing need for responsible guardrails around artificial intelligence to ensure the technology successfully drives business transformation. If there are any questions looming over trust in the use of AI, then corporations will find it difficult to offer the next level of digital-first services and get customer buy-in.
“The debate over a self-conscious AI shows there are still many anxieties about the use of artificial intelligence. If we want AI to synthesise large amounts of data, identify patterns, make decisions and continuously improve, then it has to be ethical, accountable and fully understood by all,” says Caroline O’Brien, chief data officer and head of product at Afiniti, which provides AI that pairs customers and contact centre agents based on how well they are likely to interact.
“Every business now needs a responsible AI practice. Good governance is vital, not only for an organisation, but for its vendors, partners and suppliers. Anyone who is using AI needs to have best practices embedded into their enterprise as it transforms. This is the only way to promote trust in the use of artificial intelligence in business.”
As more companies become digital-first, the challenge is likely to grow. Industry-wide funding for AI is expected to increase in 2022. A third of technology and service provider organisations with plans for AI aim to invest US1m or more into this technology in the next two years, according to Gartner, a business technology research and consulting firm. Such funding is increasing at a moderate to fast pace, as organisations create new products and services, expand their customer base and generate new revenue streams.
“We are increasingly seeing AI used in call centres to connect callers with agents. It is also being used to provide prompts to agents that help them have better conversations with customers. More intelligent chatbots are coming to the fore as well. We will see many more business processes and human decision-making complemented with intelligent machine-based services,” says the CDO of Afiniti, whose technology serves several of the largest Fortune 100 companies across industries, including telecoms, healthcare, and insurance.
“As AI’s use grows organically, it is harder for organisations to get a handle on the extent to which artificial intelligence is influencing business decision-making. Managing risk and promoting accountability is therefore becoming more important, especially as AI is increasingly used not just for frontline customer engagement, but throughout the customer journey. Having a clear understanding of how AI is being leveraged and what the impacts are in their own businesses is a huge priority for our clients right now.”
With more regulation on the horizon, the need to act now is crucial. The EU is proposing legislation to address AI systems specifically that will include a universal obligation to inform customers that they are dealing with an AI. In the UK, policies in this field are under development with the Artificial Intelligence Act, while a patchwork of federal and state-level proposals are being embedded in the U.S.
The core aim is to foster trust in AI and avoid a consumer backlash. Those enterprises, especially ones with operations in multiple jurisdictions, that don’t start building out a robust approach to responsible AI are likely to risk costs to their reputations and bottom line if issues do come to light in this arena.
This increase in regulation comes as artificial intelligence is being further embedded into the enterprise, with many more organizational tasks. For example, customer insights, user experience and process improvement are three ways AI will increasingly benefit customer service organisations in the near future, according to research from Gartner.
“We measure how our AI affects customers and employees, enabling us to understand both the business value that AI creates and its impact on people. Using AI responsibly should include testing for potential bias and correcting it where it is found,” says O’Brien from Afiniti, which has more than 400 patents and whose AI has, to date, been involved in more than 1 billion conversations between customers and call centre agents.
“From a responsible AI perspective, it’s important to make sure that we have these protections in place. Context also matters. AI is being used in many different parts of the customer journey, so knowing where it is being used, when to use it, when not to use it, and where it is going to have the most impact in a positive way is extremely important.”
Many businesses, especially large enterprises, have also implemented AI across multiple business units from marketing and sales, to logistics and business development. Having a cohesive picture on the use of AI and how it can be leveraged responsibly across the whole organisation is challenging. Yet companies will need to have a ‘single pane of glass’ view of their AI if they are to comply with new regulations.
“From conversational bots to intelligent recommendations for customer service agents, the list of how AI can be used grows longer by the day. We increasingly need to account for all these use cases, how they influence decisions and the impact they have, or the industry will start to see rising distrust from consumers,” says O’Brien.
“Having a holistic, responsible AI practice in place addresses this issue of trust. As businesses transform, we need observability, accountability and explainability for all AI uses, all of which drive customer trust. This is what Google’s sentient AI story is really highlighting.”
Responsibly transform your business with AI at afiniti.com.
Originally published in The Times Business Transformation Special Report on June 30, 2022.
LONDON, Sept. 21, 2021 – Afiniti, a global provider of AI-based behavioral pairing technology, today announced a multi-year extension to its contract with Sky, Europe’s leading media and entertainment company.
Sky uses Afiniti’s technology to help customers resolve issues over the phone more quickly and easily. Rather than routing customers to the first available agent, Afiniti’s patented AI analyses behavioral patterns to pair customers with agents based on who they will best interact with — and who is best able to solve the customer’s problem.
Afiniti’s pairings lead to better conversations that reduce the need for transfers or follow-up calls — making each customer’s experience of interacting with a brand as enjoyable and easy as possible.
“As one of our longest-standing partners, Sky has proven to be a great ally in our effort to transform customer interactions,” said Sabine Azancot, General Manager, United Kingdom, at Afiniti. “Every interaction is an opportunity for brands to give customers a better experience. That’s where Afiniti comes in — by ensuring Sky’s customers get to speak to the person they’re most likely to click with that day. We are incredibly proud of the trust the Sky team places in our technology and its ability to bring customers closer.”
The new deal significantly expands the two companies’ partnership, including a new focus on innovation that provides Sky with early access to Afiniti’s new product capabilities.
It will also allow Sky to extend Afiniti’s technology to customers of Sky Europe, as well as its Digital and Retail channels.
Media Inquiries
About Afiniti
Afiniti uses the power of AI to help brands create happier, more loyal customers. Afiniti’s unique ability to precisely measure the value of its technology through ON/OFF cycles means clients only pay for a percentage of the value delivered. It has over 150 deployments in major enterprises and has optimised more than 600,000 agents and 700 million customers. Afiniti’s technology continually learns and improves, analyzing 1.3 million interactions every day to refine its pairings. Afiniti’s technology is proven to deliver hundreds of millions of dollars in incremental revenue to its clients each year, in sectors as diverse as telecoms, banking, insurance, retail and healthcare. To learn more, visit www.afiniti.com.
About Sky
Sky is Europe’s leading media and entertainment company and is proud to be part of the Comcast group. Across six countries, we connect our 23 million customers to the best entertainment, sports, news, arts and to our own award-winning original content.
I am proud to announce that Afiniti has become a corporate sponsor of Ignite Worldwide, a global nonprofit committed to helping young women and non-binary students pursue a future in science, technology, engineering, or math (STEM).
Background
My history with Ignite spans 3 years, during which I’ve witnessed how their initiatives have made a tangible difference in students’ investment in technical topics.
My Afiniti colleagues and I saw this firsthand a few weeks ago when we hosted [a virtual field trip and Q&A session](/news/detail/ignite-worldwide) with sixteen high school students from Seattle.
New Sponsorship
With Afiniti’s corporate sponsorship, our collaboration expands to include leadership roles and regular educational events. I am delighted to share that our Chief Customer Officer, Orlando Hampton, and I have joined Ignite’s Executive Advisory Board. Together, we will help shape and support the organization’s sustainability and scalability strategies.
Ignite’s mission to make it easier for girls to build careers in STEM fields is dear to me personally. It’s also important to Afiniti, which continues to prioritize closing the gender gap among its employees, last year adding 110% more women to its global team. By hosting events like virtual field trips, workshops, and panels, we look forward to sparking the interest of girls and non-binary youth from underserved communities in future science and technology careers.
Looking Ahead
One notable upcoming event is Ignite Worldwide’s annual Virtual Spring Gala, running from May 3-9, 2021. Afiniti is an “Innovator” sponsor of this week-long event, and everyone from Afiniti and beyond is invited to attend. The gala will feature talks, career sessions with senior executives, auctions, and more to help raise awareness about Ignite’s work and build resources for its development and sustainability.
We hope to see you there! Stay tuned for future educational events when the fall school semester begins.
Lindsay Hua is the VP of Global Deployment at Afiniti.
