AI Agent Assist: How It Works and Is It Worth the Hype?

Think about the last time one of your call center agents needed your help.

It may have involved calming a customer down during a call, completing their after-call work, or trying to upsell a product.

Previously, as a supervisor, the only way to help an agent was to physically coach them through the scenario by plugging into their headset.

You may have used call whisper or barge-in functionality, so you didn’t need to physically sit next to them.

The major problem with this approach is that you ask your agents to divide their attention between you and the customer they’re dealing with.

Also, unless your call center is fortunate to have many supervisors, there’s only one of you to go around.

This is precisely where AI Agent Assist comes into play. It frees up supervisor resources while providing real-time guidance for almost any situation an agent may find themselves in.

What Is AI Agent Assist?

AI Agent Assist is an on-screen tool that provides real-time support to contact center agents by using artificial intelligence to analyze conversations and offer helpful suggestions during calls or chats.

It can help with tasks like:

• Retrieving customer data
• Suggesting responses
• Pushing new products to cross-sell and upsell
• Flagging important information
• Automating repetitive tasks

How Can AI Agent Assist Help in the Real World?

Real-time information retrieval

Let’s say Michelle from Spring Accounting calls your main number. She gets through to an agent who already has her account information loaded on their screen. Your agent can see Michelle has three outstanding invoices and a support ticket open.

When Michelle says her phone line isn’t working, your agent can immediately see that it’s been suspended due to non-payment. That’s step one of Agent Assist helping your agent out.

Suggested responses and scripts

However, Michelle has become angry because she needs to take incoming phone calls from her clients. She won’t listen to anything the agent is saying, and your agent is becoming exasperated.

Detecting the negative sentiment and raised voices, Agent Assist offers helpful responses and potential calls to action.

Sentiment analysis

The conversation has returned to a more agreeable tone, so Agent Assist detects it’s a good time to agree on the next steps. Michelle agrees to make the payment, and everyone can get on with their day.

Compliance and security

As Michelle is about to read her credit card number, the AI Agent Assist detects sensitive information that is about to be mentioned.

To ensure agents follow necessary protocols, it notifies the agent to stop Michelle in her tracks. Your agent directs her to the secure payment gateway, which affords PCI-compliant payment processing.

Agent Tooling: Secure payment agent assist

On-the-fly knowledge base suggestions

While scanning your company’s knowledge base, Agent Assist becomes aware of a cheaper phone deal Michelle could benefit from.

This is displayed on the agent’s screen so they can flag the cost savings.

Automation of routine tasks

Michelle agrees to a new two-year contract and you’ve secured new business from a challenging situation.

Typically, your agent would then have to type up the call notes. A call this long and with this many ups and downs could take 10 minutes to accurately describe. That’s a large portion of time when your phones are ringing off the hook.

Benefits of Call Summaries

• Shorter handle times – Call summaries help teams quickly understand the context of past interactions, reducing the need to re-listen to recordings or re-ask questions. This speeds up workflows and shortens call handling times.
• Improved note clarity – Summarized notes ensure details are captured and easily referenced. This is especially useful when a customer speaks with a new agent, reducing the chance of miscommunication.
• PII redaction – Built-in automation can identify and remove sensitive information like credit card numbers or social security data. This supports data privacy and helps meet compliance standards.

Time for Agent Assist to step in again. The software has automatically generated not just a transcript of the call but a call summary highlighting the key moments.

During this single call, Agent Assist has:

• Loaded customer information by the time your agent answered the call
• Offered scripted statements to diffuse the heated situation
• Suggested offers your customer could take advantage of
• Transcribed the entire call
• Created detailed call notes with timestamps for key events
• Helped optimize the customer journey for both agent and customer
• Learned from this experience and banked it (machine learning)

This is just one of many potential scenarios your agents may find themselves in. It highlights the impact conversational AI and Agent Assist can have on your business.

Common Scenarios Where Agents Can Use AI Assist

Included as part of some modern contact center solutions, Agent Assist has the potential to contribute to customer success by raising agent productivity, improving customer satisfaction, and making the entire process of contacting your business more efficient.

Handling complex queries

Agent Assist is most frequently used when agents face difficult or unfamiliar questions. AI Assist can quickly retrieve information or suggest appropriate responses, saving agents from putting customers on hold.

Rather than scrambling around for information or looking for the right person to ask, the correct information is presented as soon as a question gets asked.

Of course, an agent doesn’t have to use this response. They’re still free to put their own spin on things. However, having that prompt to hand is a serious time-saver. Expect metrics like average handle time and first contact resolution rates to change dramatically.

Dealing with high call volumes

During periods of high call volume, AI can automate parts of the conversation, like pulling up account details, enabling agents to multitask more efficiently.

For call centers using AI (think smart routing, risk detection, and self-service), assistive technologies for agents are essential. Rather than callers getting through to a random agent and then being passed around — only to have to repeat their query each time — your call routing system presents numeric options for callers to choose from.

Once selected, automatic call distribution routes customers to the most appropriate agent based on availability and skillset.

Managing difficult customers

It’s only natural that customers get frustrated at some point. After all, they probably hadn’t planned on calling you in the first place.

AI can perform real-time sentiment analysis, detect frustration or confusion, and provide guidance on how to de-escalate the situation.

In particular, bad calls get flagged for review after the event during your quality assurance process.

Onboarding new agents

AI Assist can be a digital mentor for new agents, guiding them through customer conversations by suggesting next steps, key talking points, or compliance tips.

While nothing quite beats role-play training and human guidance, having a natural language prompt in your back pocket means a faster turnaround time and more agents handling calls quicker.

When an agent is deemed ready to handle their first call, there’s less reliance on senior agents holding their hands.

Speeding up after-call work

Ask most agents to name the least fulfilling part of their job, and they’ll say post-call notes.

AI helps complete post-call documentation by summarizing key points from the conversation and logging necessary details automatically.

When using AI for customer support, it’s not about creating new content or scripts but using the information and transcripts already generated and summarizing them into digestible chunks.

Is It Worth the Hype?

For AI Agent Assist, it’s a resounding yes.

While the jury may still be out for generative AI in use cases like content creation, contact center AI is very much alive and well.

Especially in the case of enterprise contact centers, the agent efficiency gains and customer experience wins have the potential to be phenomenal.

Like all new technology, and specifically AI, there must be guardrails. We don’t advocate reducing your staff or getting rid of human agents altogether. But we are huge fans of providing those agents with the AI tools they need to make their job more productive and satisfying.

After all, a great agent experience is key to delivering a great customer experience.

If you can benefit from any of the above use cases, it might be worth giving Agent Assist a shot. But where do you even begin your search?

Meet Nextiva’s Full-Featured AI Solution

Start with Nextiva’s AI-powered tools

Nextiva’s contact center solution includes built-in AI Agent Assist, offering real-time recommendations, automated workflows, and AI-driven insights that improve agent performance and customer interactions.

Rather than bolting on a third-party AI tool, benefit from an integrated aid that pulls all your contact information and interaction history together.

If you run an omnichannel contact center, all the content from emails, SMS, chatbots, and social media becomes scannable to Agent Assist.

Integrate your CRM and knowledge bases

Taking information exchange a step further, Nextiva AI Agent Assist integrates seamlessly with your CRM system and knowledge base apps. This means agents have access to all customer data and information during calls.

Nextiva supports integration with:

• Salesforce
• Microsoft Dynamics
• Zoho
• HubSpot
• Zendesk
• Oracle Sales Cloud
• Bullhorn
• Workbooks
• ServiceNow
• Sugar CRM
• Act! CRM
• ConnectWise

Get personalized setup and support

We don’t expect you to be AI experts from day one.

Nextiva provides personalized 24/7 support to help set up and configure AI Agent Assist for your specific business needs, ensuring you get the most out of the technology.

Whether deploying a custom plan or technical setup, Nextiva prides itself on its Amazing Service®. So much so, the company trademarked it!

AI Agent Assist Is Too Beneficial to Ignore

When adopted appropriately, agents will welcome the help they receive with open arms. They will no longer need to call a supervisor every time.

Customers will love you even more as their queries get addressed faster and more thoroughly.

It’s a win-win for everybody involved in the customer service process.

Ready to tap into the power of AI Agent Assist? Get a personalized demo to see how it can help your team.