Bell Canada picks Google to enable AI-driven contact centre

Bell Canada has announced the availability of Google Cloud Contact Center AI (CCAI) from Bell for Canadian businesses – the first fully AI solution for Bell enterprise and mid-market customers.

Google Cloud's CCAI from Bell is a managed solution supported by professional services expertise that enables intelligent customer and agent experience leveraging generative AI-infused technology. Providing rich conversational experiences and analytics, Google CCAI from Bell offers scalability and flexibility that can be added to existing contact centre environments and to cloud contact centres of any size.

Bell Canada partners with Google Cloud to power their AI-driven contact centre revolution for Canadian businesses (CNW Group/Bell Canada)

Google's CCAI solutions can deliver exceptional outcomes, as Bell has experienced with its own implementation. Bell will work with customers to customize use cases that leverage the power of the innovative technical solutions available with Google CCAI from Bell, including:

Virtual Agent – Natural-sounding virtual agents reduce call volumes and accelerate time-to-resolution by collecting key information to answer simple customer queries, freeing human agents to handle more complex issues. When customers do need to speak to an agent, they'll reach one faster and be automatically directed to the agent with the right expertise to solve their issue.

Agent Assist – A virtual supervisor of sorts, Agent Assist uses real-time natural language processing to determine customer needs and sentiment and offers step-by-step recommendations to help agents deliver the best responses and solutions with confidence. Faster agent onboarding, improved customer experience, reduced callbacks for the same issue, and improved sales are proven outcomes of Agent Assist.

Analytics and Insights – Actionable insights into customer experience and sentiment help managers and agents learn from every interaction. Analyses of interactions provide a better understanding of business trends, interaction drivers, traffic, and other key metrics. Insights support strategic business decisions, tailored agent coaching, and result in more data-driven workforce planning and management.

Bell is also deploying both the virtual agent and contact centre as a service AI solutions (CCAI and CCAIP) within its own contact centres, digitally transforming and AI-enabling their internal solutions, delivering improved customer experiences to Bell customers, and helping them develop deep expertise to guide Canadian businesses with their own integrations. Bell provides customers with end-to-end managed support – from assessment of the best fit solutions, to customer journey mapping and optimization, workforce management and quality assurance, technology and applied AI integrations, and optimization of agent experience and change management.

As a Premier Level Partner for Google Cloud in the Sell Engagement Model and 2024 Google Cloud sales Partner of the Year - Canada recipient, Bell offers enhanced expertise within Google Cloud. Bell will now add Google CCAI solutions to its Contact Centre Practice, which has a proven track record of successful premise and cloud contact centre implementations with a commitment to customer satisfaction.

"We are thrilled to move forward in our strategic partnership with Google Cloud to offer CCAI to our customers. By deploying these products internally, our Professional and Managed Services teams are gaining extensive knowledge and expertise to support our customers effectively throughout the digital transformation of their contact centres. With reduced agent training time and tools to support improved sales outcomes, Google CCAI through Bell aims to turn what is traditionally a cost centre into a revenue generator," said Michel Richer, SVP, Enterprise Solutions, Data Engineering and AI, Bell.

"AI is fundamentally changing how many businesses operate, fueling a new era of cloud that can benefit virtually every area of an organization. We're excited that Bell will help scale AI capabilities to customers across the Canadian market. By utilizing Google Cloud's CCAI, Bell Canada can both transform their own contact centre operations and help their customers increase customer satisfaction, improve agent performance, reduce costs, and improve operational efficiency," said Sam Sebastian, VP, Google Cloud Canada.

"Contact centres are turning to AI-infused applications to dramatically improve both customer and employee experiences. Recent Frost & Sullivan research reveals AI momentum is building, with 32% of contact centres having already deployed AI-enabled agent assist technology and 37% leveraging intelligent virtual agents. Keys to success for these and future AI deployments includes enlisting trusted technology partnerships," said Bernie Arnason, Industry Analyst, Frost & Sullivan.

The availability of Google CCAI is a significant milestone for Bell as the company continues to support Canadian businesses in their digital transformation journey with next-generation solutions. Bell itself is undergoing a company-wide digital transformation, and in addition to Google CCAI services, is in the process of deploying other solutions within its contact centres, including Google Cloud Contact Centre AI Platform.