Evolution is nothing new in business process outsourcing (BPO)
– witness, for example, the gradual and ongoing trend towards
offshoring. However, the speed of change in the last 12-18 months
has been particularly startling, most notably in the customer
experience (CX) part of the sector.
Change has been driven in part by developments in generative AI.
It's a year since Klarna announced – to much fanfare
– that
its new OpenAI-powered virtual assistant was already doing the job
of 700 full-time agents.
Chatbots that use traditional AI to triage customer queries
– by following a simple set of rules for different inputs and
providing standard responses – have been around for some
time. But what's different about GenAI is that it can provide
much richer, more nuanced answers to far more complex customer
queries, further enhance the overall customer experience via more
efficient routing, and potentially drive greater upsell or
cross-sell opportunities.
