Frictionless CX ~The future of the customer experience is here!

NICE has partnered with Microsoft to bring its market leading Customer Experience platforms, CXone and its native AI, Enlighten and a full portfolio of Digital solutions to enable rich conversational self-service experiences. Businesses of all sizes can delight their customers with convenience and personalization, creating frictionless experiences for customer interactions that go beyond the contact center and result in the kind of experience that’s worth raving about. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t get that,” used to be a chatbot’s favorite phrase.

Rather than simplifying the customer experience, chatbots often became a barrier that prolonged the transaction process and left customers feeling dissatisfied. 

Not anymore.

With the right conversational AI which leverages large volumes of data and natural language processing (NLP) to empower virtual assistants and chatbots, lets customers have detailed back-and-forth discussions in self-service channels with automated assistants on every digital doorstep at any time.

With consumers worldwide rushing to digital and communicating with organizations from their mobile devices, and more websites using chatbots to enhance the purchasing experience, it’s essential that organizations are able to meet their customers wherever they are and however they choose to start their journey and create a cohesive, knowledge driven digital experience.

As an ISV Connect Partner, a Certified Teams Integration Partner and Certified Microsoft Dynamics and Microsoft Teams provider, NICE and Microsoft are expanding our current relationship to help further the launch of Microsoft Digital Contact Center Platform that will allow us to deliver the customer experience of the future together.

Eliminating chatbot challenges

Today’s chatbots boast advances that are far superior to the bots available just two to three years ago; still, social media is filled with posts from frustrated customers who lampoon bots as fumbling pieces of technology unable to answer a basic yes or no question.

Then came AI…

Data and AI are changing the game for chatbots, that are underpinned by powerful engines that leverage AI features like machine-to-machine learning, natural language processing (NLP) and natural language understanding (NLU) to resolve complex customer needs efficiently and without the need of agent intervention. With the right AI, bots can be nearly unrecognizable from human agents, with many being able to engage in complex conversations, helping customers resolve issues fast while also delivering an experience that leaves customers with a ‘wow factor’ experience that they may not have anticipated. A proven leader in AI and CCaaS, NICE CXone is the only Microsoft partner delivering AI natively within the CXone platform with Enlighten AI, a sophisticated artificial intelligence engine which is embedded across the CXone platform. Its self-learning AI models, based on millions of customer interactions, make every CXone application smarter allowing businesses to expedite the implementation of smart self-service.

While the technology to make this happen may be complex, the premise is simple; customers want resolution – they want that resolution to be quick, personalized and frictionless. Outdated technology makes it harder to deliver on the expectations of today’s customer. Extending our partnership with Microsoft on the Digital Contact Center Platform allows organizations to more effectively engage customers on a conversation level; they can match language and even dialect to create a meaningful connection with customers and most importantly, they can do considerably more than respond to frequently asked questions. They can recommend products, complete transactions, schedule appointments and handle a long list of other needs customers have.

Conversational AI to the rescue

What’s more, conversational AI-enabled virtual agents handling interactions, are able to collect critical and valuable data that helps to deliver personalized service through the customer’s journey with your organization. That data also plays an important role in boosting first-contact customer resolution rate and drastically reducing the number of calls that require a live agent.

This, in turn, allows live agents to focus on satisfying more in-depth customer issues, rather than being overwhelmed by the sheer volume of calls.

Today Microsoft announced their Digital Contact Center Platform . This reinforces our joint ability to provide customers proactive, modern digital customer interaction solutions that go beyond the typical bot experience and beyond the boundaries of traditional service.

“Through our partnership with NICE and the Microsoft Digital Contact Center Platform, we will enable proactive, modern customer engagement solutions that go beyond the typical contact center experience. We are excited that Nuance Conversational AI, together with NICE CXone and NICE Enlighten AI, will deliver a smarter frictionless self-service experience in the future,” said Charles Lamanna, CVP, Business Applications and Platform at Microsoft.

This collaboration will deliver solutions that encompass all digital doorsteps where customers need assistance, including SMS, Live Chat, Email, and Social Media.

“I am excited to expand the availability of our innovations as a part of the Microsoft Digital Contact Center of the Future,” said Tim Harris, VP Head of Product Solutions at NICE. “NICE is dedicated to continuous innovation, and the results will foster customer experience interaction (CXi) modernization and provide an industry-leading choice of solutions for customers.” 

Investing in the future of AI

As an example of the modernization leveraged by this partnership, NICE will further its commitment to Nuance’s Conversational AI, a speech recognition technology. 

Both companies are committed to transforming customer experiences through advanced contact center technology, enabling customer choice and openness, accelerating innovation and resulting in unique partner offerings across industries.