Contact Center and CX
CX and Conversational AI
CX and conversational AI is software that handles routine customer conversations itself and helps your agents with the rest. CX is short for customer experience. The category comes in three kinds that are built and judged differently, and your first decision is which one to lead with.
- 62 companies on the shelf
- Coverage
Buyer's checklist
Eight questions that decide this purchase
Think these through before you buy. Answer what you can and your quote comes back faster. Skip what you cannot, and we will work through it with you.
- 01
Why do customers contact you today? List the top reasons before you look at any product.
- 02
Which kind comes first: a virtual agent for customers, an assistant for your agents, or analytics on finished conversations?
- 03
If it is a virtual agent, which channels will it answer, and which few tasks will it own from start to finish?
- 04
Which channels do you offer, and roughly how much volume moves through each one a month?
- 05
Will the AI sit on top of your current contact center platform, or are you replacing the platform too?
- 06
Whose language model does the product use: the vendor's own, or one you already license? Should its answers be limited to a vetted set?
- 07
Which rules govern your recorded calls, transcripts and customer data?
- 08
Which numbers define success a year from now, such as handle time, first-contact resolution and satisfaction, and can you measure them today?
88x8
BA
Boost.ai
- Custom coaching scenarios and manager modules
- GenAI sales role-play simulation with scoring
- Objection-handling and gatekeeper training library
GGoTo
KA
Krisp AI
- LA
Level AI
NNICE
Q
Quiq
- AI service desk with automated ticket resolution
- Proactive notifications and analytics
No company matches every box you checked
That usually means the combination is rare, not impossible. Clear a filter, or add the service and we will go find who can do it.
Capabilities come from published supplier material. We confirm them for your addresses before anything is quoted.
More on what it is
A virtual agent, or bot, carries on a self-service conversation with the customer over chat, email, text, social messaging or the phone. On the voice channel it can resolve routine calls, such as a balance check, a transfer request or a standard product question, and pass the harder ones to a person along with everything it has already gathered, so the customer does not start over.
Agent assist runs beside a live conversation instead of replacing the agent. It works out what the conversation is about while it is still happening, puts a suggested answer or a coaching prompt in front of the agent, and drafts the summary afterward.
Analytics works on conversations after they end. Its value is coverage. Instead of a supervisor sampling a few calls, the software processes all of them. It builds a picture of why customers contact you, scores satisfaction and sentiment on every interaction, flags moments such as a complaint or a request for a supervisor, and joins self-service and live conversations into one view of the customer's journey.
Many of these tools sit on top of the contact center platform you already run. Others arrive as part of a full platform that also includes scheduling and quality tools. If you are choosing the platform too, start at Contact Center. Fraud detection and caller authentication can be layered onto the voice channel as well.
Three cautions from the suppliers' own material. Vendors differ in how tightly they scope the AI. Some hold a virtual agent to a fixed, vetted set of answers to control accuracy and compliance risk, and others let it generate freely. A product trained on one industry's vocabulary behaves differently from a general-purpose one. And the vocabulary itself is not standard, so two features with the same name may do different things. Ask for a demonstration on your own conversations.
Who needs it
- You run a bank, a credit union or another operation where a few kinds of routine call make up most of the volume.
- You manage a contact center and want to know why customers contact you, from every conversation instead of a sample.
- You run separate platforms for inbound calls, digital channels and outbound, and customers get bounced between them.
- You blend in-house agents with outsourced ones and need consistent quality across both.
- You work under health, financial, government or privacy rules that govern recordings and transcripts.
If your volume is low and your agents are not overloaded, fix the basics first. A virtual agent in front of a confusing process gives customers a faster route to the same frustration.
Signs you need it
- An outdated phone menu is producing long waits, annoyed callers and agents who quit.
- Customers repeat themselves because agents work on different systems that do not share what was said.
- Quality and satisfaction are judged from a small sample of calls, so real problems surface only when they grow.
- You can say how many customers contacted you last month and cannot say why.
How IT Raven helps
Add CX and Conversational AI to your quote list and tell us why your customers contact you and where your agents lose time. A person takes that to the customer experience providers in our 500+ partner network and sorts them by the kind of product you need first, by whether they work with the platform you already run, and by the rules your data falls under.
We will push for a narrow start. The suppliers' own guidance is that one successful pilot is not a strategy, and that scaling past it depends on governance, process and clean data more than on the software. A virtual agent that owns three well-defined tasks will succeed sooner than one asked to handle everything.
We stay on one thread through the pilot, the security review and the rollout. If the project turns into a wider automation effort, AI and Automation is the next page. The same team is here when you are ready for the second use.
How buying works
The store is the easy part. Staying on the account is the job.
Anyone can show you logos. The reason to buy here is what happens on install night, and on the ticket you open nine months later.
- 01
Build your quote list
Add services and companies as you shop. No form stands between you and the shelf.
- 02
We bring back real options
A person shops the bench against your addresses, then walks you through what fits and what does not.
- 03
We handle the order and install
Paperwork, site survey, install dates, cutover night. You get one thread, not five vendors.
- 04
We stay on your account
Same team for moves, adds, tickets and the next renewal. That is the part everyone else drops.