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Spoken expands customer service offering as AI reshapes contact centre sector

Customer service outsourcer Spoken.cx has expanded its range of services to include outsourced video meetings, demonstrations and customer appointments as businesses adapt to the growing use of artificial intelligence in the contact centre sector.

The company, which has team members in the UK and internationally, has traditionally provided telephone call answering and live chat services to businesses looking to outsource parts of their customer service operation.

It is now extending that model into video, with Spoken agents able to conduct scheduled meetings, product demonstrations, consultations and customer support calls on behalf of clients using platforms including Zoom and Microsoft Teams.

The move reflects a wider shift within the outsourcing industry as AI increasingly takes over routine customer service tasks.

While developments in artificial intelligence have prompted predictions of declining demand for traditional call centres, Spoken says the technology is instead changing the type of work handled by human agents.

Routine enquiries can increasingly be answered through automation, while more complex, sensitive or higher-value conversations continue to require human judgement, empathy and problem solving.

A spokesperson for Spoken said: “AI is undoubtedly changing customer service, but that does not mean the human side of the industry disappears.

“There are plenty of interactions where automation makes sense, particularly where the customer simply needs a quick answer to a straightforward question.

“But when the conversation becomes more complex, when the customer is frustrated, when there is significant value attached to the enquiry or when somebody needs to properly understand the situation, the quality of the human interaction becomes much more important.”

Spoken uses AI within its own customer service operations, but says the technology is designed to support its teams rather than act as a wholesale replacement for them.

The company believes this is particularly important for businesses where customer experience has a direct impact on sales, retention or brand reputation.

Its move into video-based customer service is intended to extend the traditional outsourced contact centre model into areas that have historically been handled internally.

Under the service, Spoken agents can be trained on a client's products, services and internal processes before attending meetings under that company's brand.

This could include demonstrating a software platform, explaining a service, holding an initial sales consultation, supporting an existing customer or dealing with an issue that is easier to resolve face to face.

The company has also developed teams for more complex interactions, including higher-value sales conversations and situations where customers require a greater level of support or reassurance.

According to Spoken, demand for this type of service has increased as video meetings have become a routine part of the way businesses communicate with customers.

For companies running frequent demonstrations or consultations, maintaining enough trained staff to cover every booked meeting can create a significant operational burden.

Outsourcing those meetings allows businesses to increase capacity without necessarily building an equivalent internal team.

The Spoken spokesperson added: “Businesses have outsourced telephone answering and live chat for years, so extending that into video is a fairly natural progression.

“A video meeting is ultimately another customer interaction. The difference is that it often requires somebody with a deeper understanding of the product, the customer and what the business is trying to achieve.

“That is where the human element becomes particularly important.”

Although Spoken maintains operations and team members in the UK, the business operates internationally and provides outsourced customer service support across different markets and time zones.

The company expects AI to become an increasingly important part of the sector but says its future role is likely to be more nuanced than simply replacing customer service teams.

Instead, it expects automation to handle a greater proportion of repetitive interactions while human agents become more focused on conversations where judgement, empathy and commercial awareness carry greater value.

For outsourcing providers, that could mean the traditional call centre becoming less about answering every call and more about managing the customer interactions technology cannot adequately handle.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Bdaily Publishing .