SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
Bold360 delivers an artificial intelligence (AI) based digital engagement solution designed to marry the “best of bots” with a company’s existing human support agents.
We spoke to Bold360’s Head of Gaming Accounts Neel Davda about bringing “fast time to value” for customer service, how a propensity for messaging amongst the younger generation is a help to the gaming operators adopting the solution, and why he thinks a personal touch will always be necessary to deal with “emotive issues or complexity”.
SBC: As a software solutions provider to some of the largest global gaming providers and the fast growing mid tier, Bold360 is not a newcomer to the industry. But just for people unaware of what it is you do, can you give a quick rundown of your services?
ND: Bold360’s digital engagement solution brings the best of bots and live agents to your customers and employees when they need it most. From the first interaction with a prospect through ongoing customer support, Bold360 delivers rich, personalised experiences across digital channels. Leveraging the power of artificial intelligence (AI), Bold360 helps you engage more efficiently from the contact center, the front desk, or the field.
And to help businesses drive greater ongoing value, our technology includes tools and insights needed to continuously optimise the customer experience. For example, real time trends into the customer queries which accelerates the ability to improve the customer experience by making the necessary changes in real time.
SBC: You mention facilitating omni-channel customer engagement as a key USP for your business. First of all, why is this so important?
ND: I would say actually our key USP is centered around working with businesses which are seeking fast time to value with an AI solution which complements and works with their human support agents. By marrying Bold360’s strong pedigree in digital engagement channels with our conversational AI technology, we are able to show significant results for deployments in which bots and live agents work together to provide seamless customer experiences.
One component of providing this is being able to meet those customers where they want to communicate with your brand, and as a result requires we provide businesses the tools to be present across channels.
SBC: And secondly, what are the key differences you see with how customers engage from channel to channel? Perhaps these differences may also have unconsciously driven how agents have previously managed their time?
ND: Customers will choose a specific channel based on complexity and urgency of the situation as well as the time they have to invest in the engagement. For example, synchronous channels like voice and chat are used for more immediate needs while asynchronous channels like email and messaging tools are used with the expectation that responses might not be immediate but can at the same time don’t require the customer to maintain continuous engagement.
Additionally, we definitely see a propensity amongst the younger generation to communicate via chat and messaging rather than voice or email. This represents a benefit to the organisation as they have the ability to handle multiple conversations (a recommended three to four chats) at any one time improving SLAs and Agent KPIs.
When you layer in AI capabilities like Bold360’s additional value is received as the AI handles more of those simple queries allowing your agents to handle more revenue generating or complex queries.
SBC: Finding this ‘best of both worlds’ in terms of human intervention vs automated tech is a key talking point across the industry for things such as odds compiling, trading and even more recently with compliance tools; what are the potential impacts on cost, and what is a realistic reduction to make to the agent workforce?
ND: What we see are common use cases that are prominent in the gaming industry around deposits, withdrawals, bonuses, promotions, sports betting, account verification and reset of password. Our flexible API architecture allows us to integrate into back end systems and allow automation; this offers deflection and lowers operational cost.
We see this as an opportunity for live agents to improve their skills sets and handle more complexity which in turn improves retention rates and value to the organisation. We often see in gaming that the contact center is split between sales and support occasionally with a 50/50 split. If we are automating more contacts, a contact center could feasibly change this ratio to 60/40 in favour of sales improving revenue potential for our client.
SBC: Do you think that an AI bot service is more attractive to a certain demographic? For example, is there more trust – and in turn use – from the younger player base?
ND: We don’t believe it is a matter of trust or non trust it is about resolution. While poor Bot industry wide deployments of years ago did provide a bad stigma, perceptions have generally turned more favorable in recent years.
Overall, if we can provide a better customer experience by answering a customer’s queries as efficiently and accurately as possible it will promote the propensity for all age groups to use it. Bold360 analyses the intent behind a customers’ query with over 93% levels of accuracy. This offers a superior experience for the customer where they can self service without the need to escalate to a live agent.
SBC: Is a totally automated bot run service achievable, or even desirable, at some point in the future?
ND: We see automation as a facilitator, an avenue to remove simplicity and frequently asked questions from an organisation. We then through a phased approach see an approach of personalisation and transactional capability that offers more and more deflection from 30% through to 50%.
We think a personal touch is always necessary, whether it be for emotive issues or complexity. Ultimately it is about offering value to you as a partner but also an optimal customer experience so they game with you for longer.
SBC: And finally, if you had to state one key positive business outcome you have brought about for a gaming client so far, what would it be?
ND: It would be the 30/40/50 rule for deflection. Immediate returns from simple use case resolution which are tried and tested in the gaming industry, a next phase to offer a simple, direct path for resolution for the top six queries and an additional 10% from integration to allow a customer to self serve through a single user interface. The final piece in the puzzle is proactively reaching out to customers to enhance conversion and retention via chat.
