While Interactive Voice Response and chatbots suffice for most interactions between consumers and brands, complex tasks often necessitate communications with a live agent. Such communications are increasingly occurring via Zoom videoconferencing, which isn’t surprising given its widespread use for communicating with friends, family, and colleagues. In addition to providing a collaborative medium via the screen-share functionality, Zoom allows consumers to see the agents with whom they are speaking, creating a personalized customer experience heretofore limited to brick and mortar businesses.

Agents in a Zoom meeting have become ambassadors who, through action and demeanor, humanize products and brands. Furthermore, Zoom has recently morphed from a single-purpose application into a platform that integrates with third-party apps powered by AI. As a result, Zoom is now indispensable in the proverbial omnichannel contact center.

Zoom Expands from an Application to a Platform
It took several months of remote work during the pandemic for housebound consumers and agents to perfect the use of Zoom. Commands for “mute,” “unmute,” “start video,” “stop video,” “share screen,” and “stop share” that once seemed confusing have become second nature. Its videoconferencing application achieved massive adoption to the point that “Zoom” became our instant vernacular.

Then in November, Zoom launched its marketplace for integrations and bots, transforming itself into a platform comprised of more than 800 third-party apps that enhance and complement a Zoom meeting. For convenience, apps are subdivided into 20 categories, including: Analytics, CRM, Customer Service, Marketing, and Sales. There isn’t an AI category, because AI is implicitly or explicitly part of every app in the marketplace!

(For additional perspective on CX Platforms, check out my recent article here)

Zoom Marketplace Apps Powered by AI
While features and functionality vary across apps in the Zoom marketplace, there are common classes of underlying AI:

• Natural language processing to decipher what’s being said. This technology is used in apps that provide transcription, translation, intent and entity mining, and summarization.
• Video signal processing to decode what’s being seen. This technology is used in apps that provide participant identification, quorum sensing, and automated pause/resume recording.
• Concurrent processing of natural language and video signal to understand what’s being communicated and how it’s expressed. This technology is used in apps that provide topic modeling, sentiment analysis, participant engagement, and identification of moments that matter.

Compelling CX and Increased Agent Productivity
By using various apps in the Zoom marketplace — and even developing proprietary apps — enterprises can deliver a compelling, branded videoconferencing experience to delight their customers. Many apps also provide value-add capabilities that can increase agent productivity. Though it may take some time for customers and agents to acclimate, Zoom is destined to become a preferred communication channel for moments that matter in the customer journey.

About the Author
Michael Sisselman, MBA, M.Sc. is an expert in Customer Experience platforms that delight customers, empower the workforce, and drive business outcomes. He most recently worked at Avaya, where he led a team of data scientists in Conversational AI, Intelligent Automation, and CX Analytics. During the autumn of 2020, Michael developed methodologies pertaining to Value Consulting and Forensic Customer Success.

Michael lives in New York and plays classical guitar every day. For more information, click his LinkedIn page.

Categories: Conversational Intelligence, Intelligent Assistants, Articles