www.managedITmag.co.uk 15 when staff are busy on other calls, a service provider wanting to automate service requests and warranty extensions, and a toilet hire business looking to streamline septic tank appointments. “Whether you are serving an MPS provider or a fish and chip shop, the idea is the same,” says Calum. “You map the repetitive calls, you integrate with systems that hold the truth (the service portal, the consumables portal, the booking calendar) and you let the agent do the repetitive transactions or at least triage them so a human only takes calls that need attention.” Conversations with customers and the speed of change in the AI landscape are presenting further possibilities, including transitioning from purely voice-based solutions (24/7 AI phone answering, intelligent appointment booking, smart call routing) to non-voice, text-based applications in process and task automation. With so much potential, Calum says the greatest challenge is maintaining focus on the present. “The way AI is constantly changing is amazing. Sometimes I have to calm myself and say ‘hold on, let’s finish what we’re doing now before we jump on the next big opportunity’.” What started as an in-house efficiency project to capture the knowledge of a small, experienced team and make it available 24/7 has rapidly proved itself to be an effective way to defend margins, win tenders and offer better service to customers that has applications far beyond its roots in the MPS industry. www.aivoicesolutions.co.uk He is now developing additional functionality, such as integration with the internal email system so that the AI Voice agent can interrogate information contained there, and extending its capabilities to outbound applications initially to call existing customers but ultimately to prospect for new business. From in-house project to new business Associates in the print industry noticed what Calum was doing with AI, and their reactions –particularly those of BITS, provider of a device management portal for MPS providers – encouraged him to set up AI Voice Solutions. “We use Vantage Online for our internal system and the BITS OneStop MPS portal for our toner monitoring. If a customer rings in and says they want toner, our first reaction is to check when they last had one, because we find that when a customer runs out of toner they often ring us before checking whether they have a replacement in a cupboard somewhere. To stop the bot from sending toners out each time one is requested, we realised we would need to interrogate OneStop to find out when we last sent a toner to the client and when they last fitted one. If we see that we’ve sent one, but it hasn’t been fitted yet, we can ask them to find it. “We asked BITS if we could have their API and when we explained why, they expressed an interest in offering what we’ve done to MFP dealers in other parts of the country. Since then, another software company has made the same request, which got us to think about what other sectors might want it.” For commercial clarity, Calum concluded it would be better to break the association with Lanier South West and set up a separate company and website focused purely on AI Voice. Evolving opportunities AI Voice Solutions already has about a dozen customers from diverse sectors, including a fish and chip shop wanting the ability to take orders and payments chatbot on Lanier South West’s website, enables the AI agent to log incoming service calls and relevant details provided by the caller straight into Vantage Online, providing an experience that Calum says is both more fluid and potentially more informative than registering a fault via Vantage Online directly. “With Vantage Online, you have to set up a login for the end user and when they log in they have to fill out a form to log a call. With our bot, people just need to provide their device’s serial number to log the call. There’s no format to it. It’s fluid. You can also ask it for other things. If, say, you’ve got black lines on copies, it will give advice on whether it’s from the engine or you need to clean the glass. If you ring and ask for guidance on setting up scan to folder, it will email you a Scan to Folder guide or a video link. Soon, it will do this by text or WhatsApp as well. So, we started looking at AI voice from a service point of view, at how it could help our clients.” Assistance, not replacement Calum was clear from the outset that the AI was to assist existing staff, not replace them. Incoming service calls are still answered by Jane on the service desk. The AI Voice agent will only kick in if Jane is away from her desk or on another call. “If you ring our service desk and Jane doesn’t answer, it will announce that it’s an AI service and is there to support Jane, so people are completely aware of what they’re talking to. It will then ask how it can help and, once the call has been logged, send a confirmation email to Jane and to the customer. If the caller doesn’t want to talk to AI or if they decide they want to talk to a human at any point during the call, they can go back to the internal phone system.” Calum is collecting feedback to gauge customers’ feelings about AI Voice, but from his perspective it has already proved its value by freeing up staff to deal with more complex tasks and by enabling Lanier South West to compete for tenders that require 24-hour service. AI
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