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Genesys improves workforce management software with AI
Genesys has developed new workforce management software to help contact centers with forecasting and scheduling.
Genesys has released new cloud-based workforce management software for contact centers. The product uses AI to forecast how busy a contact center will be at any given time and to generate corresponding schedules for customer service agents.
Genesys said the new product can generate forecasts and schedules within seconds -- dramatically quicker than the vendor's existing workforce management software, which takes hours to produce results. The forecasts are 95% to 97% accurate, the vendor said.
The forecasting program will use machine learning to improve predictions over time based on trial and error. The automated scheduling system will also use machine learning to make schedules that best meet customer demand, business goals and the restrictions of individual employees.
Forecasting and scheduling are two of the most complex tasks handled in the contact center, but many businesses still rely on outdated technologies and methodologies, said Donna Fluss, president of DMG Consulting LLC, based in West Orange, N.J.
Genesys isn't the first contact center vendor to invest in better workforce management software. Nice inContact added relatively advanced forecasting and scheduling capabilities to its cloud-based CXone offering a few years ago.
But if Genesys' new product is as accurate and quick as it claims, Genesys will be in a good position to sell the platform to its customers, Fluss said. "If somebody were to build a really good [workforce management] solution, they could capture a major part of the market," she said.
Genesys adds predictive routing, AI assistants
The workforce management software was one of several AI features Genesys added to its contact center offerings this week.
Genesys unveiled software that uses AI to assist agents during customer calls. The tool listens to the call and automatically suggests next steps to the agent.
Another application tracks a customer's actions on a company website. If a bank wanted to help a customer apply for a personal loan, for example, the product could automatically generate an outbound call or browser chat if the customer seemed to be having trouble finding the application online.
Genesys said it improved its predictive routing technology -- which uses AI to pair customers with agents -- by adding more complex data sets to its algorithm, such as information on each agent's expertise and performance history.
Genesys developed the AI technologies itself, but the vendor has also committed to keeping its platform open to the AI tools of major cloud vendors, including Amazon Lex and Google Cloud. Genesys is one of several leading vendors partnering with Google on the release of a new AI developer toolkit for contact centers.
