Autonomous Communication. Lately, we’ve been hearing more and more about Autonomous Communication. Is it yet another soon-to-be-forgotten buzzword, or is it a true, fundamental shift in how we do things, as customers, as organizations, and as CX leaders? We, at CommBox, believe it is a new era. A new stage in the way organizations interact with their customers, and with other stakeholders. Let’s see why.

The Ear of The Call Center

A few decades ago, the call center was a real revolution. One number, one location, where customers could turn to ask, well, anything. And they did. They called to ask about how to best operate their new purchases or to complain about an interaction they thought went wrong. They called to renew a subscription or insurance, and they called to terminate the engagement, but they always had to call. Or worse, they had to accept calls from the call center.

As sophisticated as the call centers were, they had the same hurdles working against them: They were human-based, so inevitably were subject to the equation of “more customers mean more service calls, which means more agents needed”. This equation perpetuated the essence of the call center and of customer service as a cost center.

Agents could only handle one call, one customer, at a time.

The human agents had to rely on pulling limited data from dispersed systems, updated once every 24 hours, or even less frequently.

But worst of all, frustrated customers had to wait on the line for hours, and often not being able to resolve their issues on the same call. This meant that they had to await a return call from the call center, coming in at all hours of the day, be it convenient for the customer, or not. These were dark times, indeed.

The Service-oriented Era

With technological progress, also driven by organizations becoming more customer-centric, additional channels and options have entered customer interaction options. Social media, messaging, and texting relieved some of the pressure on the overworked agents at the call center, enabling customers to resolve a relatively small, yet growing portion of their inquiries automatically.

Systems were still disjointed, with significant barriers overburdening agents with tedious, repetitive tasks such as pulling customer data from different systems, relying on outdated data, using different systems for different communication channels, and performing many repetitive, manual tasks, which were prone to mistakes.

As most business processes were managed by human agents, the old equation of “more customers and/or better customer service equals more human agents, meaning more costs”, was preserved. The call center was still a cost center. It was time to change that.

The Conversational Era

Over the last few years, new technology such as CommBox’, has brought on a different era – The era of conversations.

Customers today are different than they were 25-30 years ago. They are digitally savvy; they have zero patience to wait on the line; and they are result driven. Customers today want to interact with their service providers – in any vertical – whenever and wherever they have an issue they wish to address. They do not adhere to “call-center working hours”, or “Your call is very important to us. Please stay on the line for the next 28 minutes”.

Customers now demand independence, to be able to self-serve, with the growing desire to never speak to an agent if they can avoid it. CommBox enables customers to enjoy automated, personalized journeys, managed by AI, based on always-updated data, directly from your CRM. Best of all? Agents could now use a single workspace, using one application to manage all customer-related systems and communication channels, making work easier and more efficient.

Each customer can choose their channel of choice, be it WhatsApp, SMS, voice, email, messenger, email, and more, and self-manage almost any process.

CommBox brings human agents into the customer journey exactly at the right time, only when needed, at specific junctions and to help with complex issues. This enabled our customers to finally shift the paradigm and break that persistent equation, turning the call center and customer-experience-focused human agents into a growth engine.

The next step is a big one.

The Era of Autonomous Communication – Also known as the Era of Convenience

Welcome to a new world of customer experience! With the introduction of Generative AI and a customer-obsessed mindset, we are entering an era of unparalleled convenience.

Imagine this: Companies can now leverage their existing data to simplify complex business processes. They can automatically generate and execute well-scripted, effective customer journeys that adapt and evolve as needed, at a click of a button.

This is mind-blowing: Companies can create responsive, adaptive as they progress, resolution-oriented customer interactions that are fully automated and digital, with a click of a button.

Gone are the days of customers waiting on hold, getting lost in frustrating voice navigation menus, or dealing with callbacks at inconvenient times. In this era of convenience, your customers have the freedom to choose any communication channel, at any time.

Human agents will still be there, providing service right when they are needed, improving the business operations, goals, and growth, by turning every customer interaction with a human agent into an upsell opportunity.

But here’s where it gets truly exciting: the era of autonomous communication is just a prequel to Autonomous agents. Picture this—what if you could assign an objective to a software program powered by AI, which could break it down into a to-do list, prioritize tasks, execute them flawlessly, check its work, and repeat until the objective is perfected? Believe it or not, this future is closer than we think.

According to Matt Schlicht, CEO and co-founder of Octane AI, this is happening faster than one might think: ultra-personalization will become the norm, with autonomous agents effortlessly generating personalized images, videos, websites, emails, ads, and more.

And it doesn’t stop at customer experience alone. Autonomous agents will be able to power businesses at large, as autonomous enterprises will operate themselves and their machinery, equipment, and software development autonomously, as billion-dollar companies run entirely by autonomous agents—the possibilities are limitless.

 So, what next?

The era of convenience is rapidly approaching. Are you ready to leap into the future of customer service and experience? Stay tuned and join us on this exciting journey.