How to do call deflection the right way

There are countless ways for consumers to interact with their favorite brands, whether through live chat, self-service portals, social media, or apps. However, not all channels work well for every situation, and many customers still prefer to call and speak with an agent directly.

When phone lines are busy, companies often try to redirect callers to self-service options with messages like, “Did you know you can solve your issue on our online platform?” While this might be helpful, some customers either can’t or don’t want to use those options, which is why they called in the first place.

When done correctly, call deflection can create a better customer experience and save time for both your customer support teams and your customers. However, when handled poorly, customers are frustrated and still searching for a quick solution. Here’s how to get it right.

What is call deflection?

Call deflection is a strategy that aims to reduce the number of incoming calls by guiding customers to alternative support channels like online FAQs, chatbots, or self-service tools. The goal is to resolve issues without needing a direct conversation with an agent, while also improving customer retention by providing them with effective solutions.

How call deflection works

Call deflection relies on a variety of channels and tools to manage customer inquiries outside the traditional call center experience. When the right strategy is used, it doesn’t just offload calls but actually helps customers solve their issues on alternative platforms. Here’s how different types of call deflection work.

Common types and channels of call deflection

Call deflection can involve IVR, email, live chat or messaging, and various other self-service tools.

IVR

Automated systems like touch tone (“press x for this or y for that”) and keyword-driven IVRs (“tell us in one word why you’re calling”) are often the first layer of deflection. These systems attempt to route customers to appropriate solutions based on predefined prompts. For example, a customer calling about a billing issue may hear an IVR option that directs them to pay their bill online, removing the need to speak to an agent.

Email

Email support lets customers ask questions and get help at their own convenience. It works well for non-urgent issues or questions that need detailed answers. For example, if a customer wants assistance with a product return, they can send an email to explain their situation without needing an immediate response.

Live chat

Live chat allows customers to talk directly with support agents in real time. This option is great for those who want to speak with an agent but may not have access to or interest in using the phone. For instance, if a customer needs help tracking an order, they can use live chat to get an update from a representative instead of waiting on the phone.

Self-service tools (FAQs and chatbots)

Self-service options like FAQ pages or knowledge bases provide customers with immediate answers to common issues and can usually be found on a company’s website. Chatbots can assist by guiding users through troubleshooting steps or answering frequently asked questions using pre-programmed responses, and work best for simple inquiries such as “How do I reset my password?” or “What are your store hours?”

The role of AI in call deflection

While self-service options like IVRs, chatbots, and FAQ pages can help to reduce call volume to some degree, 73% of customers still call, either as a first option or when other digital interactions have been unsuccessful.

Many enterprises are investing in a new generation of conversational AI-driven voice assistants that let customers communicate naturally, much like they would with a human.

Using a specific tech stack that includes automatic speech recognition, spoken language understanding, dialogue management, and speech synthesis, a voice assistant can listen, understand, and respond to what customers are saying. This approach allows customers to resolve their issues through natural conversation without input from an agent.

Why call deflection works – and where it gets tricky

The primary goal of call deflection is to make your customers’ and agents’ lives easier. If fewer customers are waiting on hold, there are fewer customers to manage, and your customer service agents can spend more time with customers who need them the most.

Benefits of call deflection

When executed well, call deflection has a number of benefits to your organization and your customers, including:

• Improved efficiency: Reducing the number of incoming calls frees up your agents to focus on the customers who need them the most.
• Cost-effective: It’s cheaper to offer self-service solutions than to hire and train a large team of agents.
• Customer satisfaction: When customers can resolve issues without waiting on hold, they have a better overall experience.

Challenges of call deflection

If call deflection strategies are poorly executed, they can backfire. Redirecting customers to self-service channels without actually solving their problem just shifts the issue around. This is especially true when these alternative channels can’t handle a wide range of requests.

In the past, self-service options have led to frustrating experiences. Chatbots often limit responses to pre-selected options or one-word answers, while voice automation systems have been equally disappointing.

Automated systems like IVRs often misunderstand callers, forcing customers to repeat themselves. They don’t allow clarifying questions and often result in callers shouting ‘AGENT!’ in the hope of getting out of an endless loop of broken self-service.

When customers get trapped in this loop, it’s easy to understand why they lose trust in these systems, and your call abandonment rates rise.

Why you should invest in voice automation over call deflection

73% of customers use self-service at some point in their customer service journey, but only 14% of customer service and support issues are fully resolved in these channels. And when digital channels fail, customers pick up the phone. They do this because:

• They want to be understood
• It’s faster for urgent queries
• They can explain their problems in more detail.

This is why brands need to rethink their call deflection strategy.

Building customer trust with customer-led conversations

A new generation of AI voice assistants offers a better way for enterprises to effectively deflect calls without making customers feel ignored or undervalued.

By engaging in natural, customer-led conversation, these voice assistants improve call containment, enhance customer experiences, and give companies more control over every customer interaction than ever before.

To deliver genuinely helpful support, voice assistants must earn the customer’s trust. This means understanding callers, whatever they say, and however they say it.

Customer-led conversations give callers the freedom to:

• Tell long stories in their own words
• Ask clarifying questions at any point in the conversation
• Use regional slang, synonyms, and turns of phrase
• Be understood regardless of their accent, the quality of the phone connection, or background noise

AI-powered voice assistants that let customers speak naturally and feel confident they’re understood reduce the need for customers to talk to a live agent. This allows your contact center agents to focus on more complex tasks while leaving a lasting positive impression of your brand.

Don’t sacrifice customer control or experience, thanks to PolyAI

Embracing voice AI will enable your organization to handle call deflection more effectively, enhance customer experiences, and streamline operations. This approach ensures prompt call answering, reduced call volume, and scalable customer service.

PolyAI offers the world’s most lifelike voice AI for enterprise customer service. With voice AI that feels like talking to a real person, customers can expect to see a 50% reduction in call volume, dramatically decreasing call abandonment rates, improving employee experience, and empowering every customer to get the support they need when they need it.

Say goodbye to outdated IVR systems

By allowing callers to express themselves freely without relying on ‘press 1 for this, press 2 for that’ IVRs or Chatbots that rely on single-word prompts, our voice assistants guide callers through a natural conversation and make them feel understood, giving them more confidence to resolve their problems without speaking to an agent.

Instead of telling customers to repeat themselves or just ‘go online,’ like a traditional IVR, a PolyAI voice assistant can engage callers in conversation to understand their queries and resolve the issue fully or give them an exact link via text or email that takes them straight to the resource they need to address their problem efficiently.

Speak to our team today and discover how PolyAI can help you answer every call immediately, improve loyalty, resolve over 50% of calls, and deliver effortless CX at scale