Updates on Google collaborations with Cisco featured at WebexOne
Jonathan King
Managing Director, Strategic Technology Partnerships
Over the past three years, Google Cloud has worked closely with Cisco to deliver a number of customer-focused solutions in areas such as hybrid cloud, multicloud, work transformation, and contact center integrations. Earlier this week, we were excited to share updates on our joint work in the collaboration space at WebexOne, Cisco’s digital collaboration conference, which brings together global customers to share the latest on remote work, customer service, and more. These developments to our partnership include enabling Webex Contact Center with Google Cloud’s Contact Center AI (CCAI) solution, which is powered by Google Cloud artificial intelligence (AI) and Natural Language Processing capabilities, and bringing Cisco Webex Expert on Demand to Glass Enterprise Edition.
Making contact centers more customer-centric with AI
As the world continues to adjust to a new way of working, the role of contact centers has become even more critical to businesses, governments, and individuals. According to IDC, more than 70 percent of buyers point to customer experience as the most important consideration in their purchasing decisions. Businesses have realized that providing seamless and effective customer service to their buyers increases customer loyalty and increasingly, that this can be achieved with AI-powered contact center solutions. In fact, IDC predicts that by 2025, AI-powered enterprises will be able to achieve Net Promoter Scores that are 1.5 times higher than those of their competitors.
Recently, Cisco integrated its Contact Center solutions with Google Cloud’s Contact Center AI solution, making it easy for businesses to complement their existing Cisco-powered contact center services with virtual agents quickly, and to support their customers with 24/7, self-service systems.
By leveraging Google Cloud capabilities in ML, natural language understanding, and speech recognition and synthesis, this joint solution from Google Cloud and Cisco helps customers get answers to questions quickly, through natural and efficient conversations. CCAI also supports contact center agents, helping them address questions and problems with easy access to documents and information.
"The contact center is going through a renaissance, and artificial intelligence is playing a key role during this very exciting time,” said Omar Tawakol, VP and GM for Cisco’s Contact Center group.” By combining Google Cloud’s Natural Language Processing and AI capabilities that are able to deduce a consumer’s intent with our industry leading skills based routing capabilities that are able to match an agent’s specific skill with the AI determined intent, we’re able to create a unique and differentiated fusion of human and AI that will empower agents and delight customers."
Improving service and responsiveness to Illinois citizens with AI
While industries ranging from retail and e-commerce to financial services are leveraging AI solutions to support consumers, the use cases for AI increasingly involve delivering critical assistance to citizens, as governments step up digital access to services and information.
In the spring of 2020, the State of Illinois faced an unprecedented surge in applications for unemployment benefits, with more than a million claims submitted between March 1 and May 9—nearly 12 times the volume the department processed during the same period in 2019. Compounding the challenge was the need to transition state employees to remote work due to COVID-19. The Illinois Department of Employment Security (IDES) chose Google Contact Center AI to enable their virtual agents to quickly and effectively serve citizens through chat and voice.
Cisco’s Contact Center AI APIs connect the Google Cloud Dialogflow service to the state’s Cisco contact center and communications system. Their web and phone systems were up and running by late April, with Virtual Agents answering 40,000 after-hours calls per day to provide immediate, real-time assistance with questions about eligibility, filing claims, and more. Importantly, the state was able to generate cost savings through the solution, according to initial analysis.
Extending Cisco Webex Expert on Demand on Glass Enterprise Edition 2
The Cisco Webex Expert on Demand application for Glass Enterprise Edition 2 empowers remote frontline workers such as retail store employees, manufacturing line workers, and field service technicians by enabling hands-free collaboration in the field, around the world. Expert on Demand connects these professionals to experts who can guide them step-by-step in real time.
Real-time collaboration is a key use case for Glass Enterprise Edition 2, a wearable device that provides hands-on workers and professionals with glanceable information in a comfortable, lightweight profile designed to be worn all day. With a transparent heads-up display and a point of view camera, Glass helps onsite workers collaborate with others, while staying focused on the task at hand. Remote workers dialed into Cisco Webex Expert on Demand can see exactly what onsite workers see as they perform their jobs and communicate directly with them to provide real-time assistance.
If you’re interested in participating in this customer preview program, visit google.com/glass/contact/business to place a request.
Google Cloud and Cisco keep collaborating to innovate
Innovation is the cornerstone of Google Cloud’s global partnering strategy, and as you can see, there is an incredible amount of innovation happening between Cisco and Google Cloud. We take pride in offering these and more collaborative ventures in the future, with the goal of helping our mutual customers get work done. We look forward to your business joining us on this journey.
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