Build 2023: Transforming customer experiences with automated, AI-assisted communication

Today at Microsoft Build we shared that Azure Communication Services will be releasing new capabilities for businesses to build intelligent and effective interactions with their customers. These releases are helping developers shape the workflows they need, with interoperability into Microsoft Teams and turnkey AI features to transform customer experiences.

 

Call automation general availability

 

Starting next month, Azure Communication Services call automation APIs will be available to help businesses manage high volumes of customer demand, while streamlining customer service and reducing overhead. Customers want to engage with businesses on their preferred channel of communication and at their preferred time and convenience. Call automation enables developers to add programmable workflows for telephony (PSTN and direct routing) and internet voice calling (WebRTC) with available libraries in C#, Java, JavaScript, and Python. To further deliver delightful experiences, application developers can use call automation with AI capabilities offered by Azure AI services and deliver real-time monitoring and sentiment analysis to help address customers’ needs. The ability to embed these types of advanced workflows and commands into applications can improve critical customer outcomes ranging from the simple to the complex, such as:

 

Augmenting customer service. Build interactive voice response (IVR) systems to engage users and triage low-complexity, high-value tasks for reduced time to customer resolution and boost agent productivity.

 

Setting up voice reminders and alerts. Provide a superior customer experience with service automation that drives voice reminders or alerts to notify consumers about critical events and information such as utility outages, school closures, or reminders for upcoming appointments.

 

Programming simple voice interactions. Support service providers with automated call-backs, number masking and redirect workflows to appropriately route callers along an interaction journey, using different numbers or endpoints. Derive insights and track success by analyzing post call recordings, rich logs, and telemetry.

 

B2C extensibility with Microsoft Teams

 

We are also excited to share that developers will soon be able to use Azure Communication Services for programmable and ad hoc access between a custom application and Microsoft Teams users to support a variety of calling workflow scenarios.

 

For example, we have an upcoming preview of call automation extensibility into Microsoft Teams allowing agents on a customer call to invite subject matter experts using Teams into their workflow for faster resolution. Businesses can deliver expedient, first call resolution during times of peak influx, by extending their agent capacity and connecting customers directly to key personnel such as store employees or account managers on Teams.

 

“It is critical for our customers to deliver a true single pane of glass solution as one of their core business drivers. NICE CXone agents are required to deal with complex requests with accuracy and speed, this often requires adding the correct subject matter expert into the interaction. Being able to seamlessly connect to the right person and provide the required context is a massive win for our customers as agents feel empowered to deliver first class service.” -Hugh David Smith, Product Director of CX, NICE

 

In addition, Azure Communication Services interoperability into Microsoft Teams to support customer and business connectivity for scheduled Teams meetings, will be soon extended to support ad hoc calling. Meaning customers that request help or connection through a business’ application or website can be routed directly in real-time to a Teams-based user, Teams call queue or a Teams auto attendant.

 

In a world where customers need quick resolution and seamless interactions, Azure Communication Services’ B2C extensibility with Microsoft Teams makes it easy for customers to reach sales and support teams and for businesses to deliver effective customer experiences.

 

AI-assisted calling workflows

 

As a modular communications platform for businesses, our goal is to help development teams not only implement programmable workflows across their applications, websites, and mobile platforms, but also enhance and improve outcomes within those workflows. Coming soon in preview, we will be releasing the ability to add speech capabilities into call automation workflows with Azure Cognitive Services. Azure speech enables powerful conversational AI experiences for customers by recognizing specific phrases as well as free-form sentences spoken by a user like – “hey, my car broke down, I need help;” enabling businesses to adapt to changing customer needs in real-time and shorten the time spent navigating Interactive Voice Response (IVR) menus.

 

With features like Speech-to-Text and Text-to-Speech, businesses can enable virtual agents to have voice interactions in over 100 languages and use neural voices to make interactions more natural and engaging. Or enhance virtual agents by adding emotions using the Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML) feature. These speech capabilities also simplify the use of Azure Open AI Service in calling workflows with just a few lines of code. Businesses can feed ongoing interactions to the Azure OpenAI Service to identify intent and personalize recommendations based on user activity and sentiment. Businesses can also analyze historical interactions to identify trends that help optimize their operations, garnering actionable insights to improve future customer outcomes.

 

Bringing it all together

 

Below is an example of how these new components and capabilities can work together during an inbound customer service call.

 

 

1. In app calling and telephony experiences: User makes a call to a business’s phone number or connects via a web or mobile app. Using calling capabilities from Azure Communication Services, developers can embed communication experiences into end-user applications across all devices and platforms. Developers can also purchase numbers directly from Azure to enable PSTN calling.

 

2. Call automation to build calling workflows: Using Azure Communication Services call automation APIs, the application is notified of an incoming call. Calling data and user input captured during the call, combined with internal data sources can inform the application to make an intelligent routing decision and the workflows to invoke actions like a virtual agent for self-serve experience or a contact center queue to connect with a live agent or offer a callback when experiencing longer wait times. The call can also be recorded in various formats to meet regulatory requirements and for running post-call analysis to extract valuable insights that help improve customer service operations.

 

3. Turnkey AI features (preview): Using Azure Cognitive Services, AI assistance can enable voice-based communications with a virtual agent to play dynamic text-to-speech prompts and detect user input using speech-to-text. This can then be paired with other AI capabilities to analyze caller intent or monitor sentiment for customer satisfaction during the call.

 

4. Conversational experiences with virtual agents: Call automation features for play and recognize can help virtual assistants detect user input in various formats and resolve low-impact, high-value customer queries. This is often critical for businesses that need to provide 24/7 support and improve time to resolution while reducing agent load.

 

5. Extensibility with Microsoft Teams (preview): Leverage integration with Microsoft Teams to add Teams users to a call to drive down the resolution time and provide expert advice if needed.

 

6. Route calls to your network with direct routing: Azure Communication Services can also integrate with an existing telephony network or SIP trunks for routing complex requests into contact centers.

 

Azure Communication Services call automation APIs abstract away the complexity of calling so developers can build intelligent, cohesive workflows for multiple calling channels (PSTN, WebRTC or SIP) that can also immediately adapt to customer needs. To ensure that customers get a seamless experience irrespective of the type and number of endpoints they connect to, call automation makes it possible to share context about the call and user request that enables agents to ramp up quickly on a customer journey and jump right into providing resolution. The composability of these workflows allows businesses to plug and play various communication capabilities into their existing customer experiences and modernize their infrastructure gradually.

 

“With Azure Communication Services, we can accelerate the delivery of new features into our Dialogue Cloud platforms even further. The programmability of call automation is very exciting and is a game changer in building new calling endpoints into our dialogue management platform. And the market reach will be phenomenal.” - Ruud Lendfers, Product Director at Anywhere365

 

Next Steps

 

Try out this sample that brings together the features mentioned in this post for a powerful communication interaction:  aka.ms/acs-ca-demo

 

Additionally, learn more about call automation at aka.ms/acs-ca or follow a step-by-step guide on how to establish your first call with Azure Communication Services at aka.ms/acs-ca-quickstart

 

Check out the pre-recorded session at Microsoft Build that highlights these upcoming releases with a walk-through demo on how to build an AI-assisted calling workflow with interoperability into Microsoft Teams:

 

OD20: Build AI-assisted communication workflows for customer engagement (microsoft.com)

 

Related sessions below:

 

OD14: Create custom Virtual Meetings apps with Azure Communication Services and Microsoft Teams

OD109: Building on the Microsoft Cloud: Audio/video calling from a custom app

PRT002: AI Infused Omnichannel Communications (microsoft.com)

PRT016: Modernizing high volume customer communications platforms (microsoft.com)

LAB171: Build an end-to-end customer engagement app with Azure Communication (microsoft.com)

 

 Learn more about our quoted partners and the innovative solutions they bring to help businesses achieve more:

 

NICE

nice.com/cxone-agent-for-teams

 

Anywhere365

anywhere365.io/infinity-msbuild/

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