The COVID-19 pandemic forced countless businesses to reinvent the customer experience. With large numbers of employees working from home, the launch of remote contact centres surged when shutdowns began.
From travel firms to insurance companies, suddenly the traditional model didn’t hold up. Companies needed a way to connect their teams, and the cloud provided the perfect avenue to do this quickly so they could best serve customers. Amazon Web Services (AWS) reported that at the start of the pandemic, customers deployed more than 5,000 new contact centres for voice, chat and task management in the cloud. Using Amazon Connect—one of its fastest growing services—customers could be agile with its cost-effective, scalable, and easy-to-use platform that can be set up in minutes from remote locations. All that’s needed is a headset and internet service connection for contact centre reps to get started.
Gore Mutual is just one Canadian company re-imagining customer service and experiences with Amazon Connect. “The agility has been phenomenal,” said Andy Taylor, CEO of Gore Mutual. “When we recognized that our existing technology wasn’t going to enable our digital transformation, AWS’ cloud technology became fundamental to successfully executing our strategy.”
Gore Mutual used Amazon Connect to enhance both the customer and broker experience. Service levels were accelerated from days to minutes, and brokers have reported that the new technology has been a game-changer. Real-time data, dashboards and analytics give Gore agility and adaptability.
“Amazon Connect led to a complete transformation of Gore Mutual by allowing the construction of new servers on the cloud within minutes — and with the click of a button” said Jas Dhinsda, Chief Technology and Data Officer at Gore Mutual. “The client personalization this enabled has allowed Gore agents to know who’s calling with customer-specific details, while AI sentiment analysis and chatbots all work together to create an enhanced customer experience.”
Global travel company Priceline, experienced a 300 per cent increase in call centre volume during the pandemic. Amazon Connect allowed Priceline to address the spike in demand immediately by re-routing calls and handling backlogs as more than 1,000 agents were quickly moved to a work-from-home model. Amazon Connect also allowed Priceline agents to prioritize customers with flights taking off within 72 hours—an important feat that would not have been possible without the new platform.
The New York Times leverages Amazon Connect for its own products, using detailed analytics and sentiment analysis via speech and natural language processing for its call centre. This has allowed the Times to generate transcripts and determine customer needs through common words and phrases used in calls, facilitating interaction across all channels.
“Amazon Connect has several features that dramatically enhance the customer service experience, including customer profiles that provide more personalized service that results in a 25% reduction in call centre handle time,” said Annie Weinberger, Head of Product Marketing for Business Applications at AWS. “Amazon Connect Wisdom gives contact centre agents critical information at the right time, recommendations through scripts, as well as actions to take to resolve issues based on real-time conversation understanding powered by machine learning. These are just a few reasons why it’s been such a boon to clients throughout the pandemic.”
You can learn more about how AWS’ Amazon Connect is re-inventing the call centre here.
