Digital Workspace

Small Businesses Are Using Generative AI to Boost Collaboration Platforms

SMBs are leveraging artificial intelligence in Webex, Microsoft Teams and more to streamline communication and offer 24/7 customer service.

John Klein

John Klein is a solutions architect at CDW and an industry expert in communication and collaboration platforms. He has experience in training and education in voice, video, audio visual, and headset technologies and has helped design and deploy hundreds of phone systems and video solutions across manufacturers.

Modern collaboration isn’t just about instant messaging and videoconferencing anymore. It means having a full-time generative artificial intelligence co-pilot that can automate tasks, provide personalized customer interactions and generate valuable insights from data. With AI built into tools like Webex, Microsoft Teams, Zoom and Google Cloud, small businesses can look like big companies, running 24/7, 365 days a year with instant customer support.

Here are some of the most effective ways IT leaders are using these tools:

Automate Routine Tasks and Streamline Workflows

Generative AI can automatically transcribe and summarize meeting notes, making it easier for team members to glean key points without having to sit through lengthy recordings or review transcripts. This saves employees time and offers smoother workflow integration. This is a particularly good place to start if a small business is at the beginning of implementing AI into its business and looking for an immediate ROI.

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Offer Continuous Customer Service

With AI-driven intelligent chatbots, small businesses can be available and responsive to their customers at all times. This also helps teams optimize costs from a staffing perspective: Instead of hiring 30 customer service agents, a small business can hire three to do the job, assisted by AI.

A small business such as 1-800-Flowers.com can also use AI predictive models to calculate how many virtual or live agents it will need to handle customer service requests and orders during a busy period to help meet demand.

Intelligent Contact Centers

Once a small business has an automated customer service plan in place, IT leaders can invest in further training chatbots in order to build a more intelligent contact center. This training enables chatbots to become more proficient at difficult tasks such as delivering project updates, investigating credit card discrepancies or retrieving order tracking numbers. The more training a chatbot receives, the larger its library of data examples grows, and the more sophisticated it becomes.

IT leaders can also customize their AI-enabled contact centers further with callback queues, so users can skip the wait on hold and receive a phone call once an agent is available. These calls can also be recorded to serve as a training tool for employees. Did the request get resolved? Did the virtual agent exhibit sufficient empathy in answering the question? Were the resources provided generic or specific? Businesses can also collect data via automated ratings to improve their AI-driven services.

Advanced Data Analysis and Decision Support:

Generative AI can analyze historical data and predict future trends, helping teams make informed decisions. This kind of AI forecasting helps determine project timelines, budget requirements, and resource allocation.

Small businesses are also turning to generative AI to create and maintain dynamic dashboards that provide real-time insights into business performance metrics. These dashboards can be tailored to the specific needs of different team members, ensuring that relevant data is always accessible. As integration requirements increase, customized dashboards can help IT leaders keep track of what products have been purchased, which ones may be duplicative in scope and when licenses are up for renewal.

These generative AI applications streamline operations and help teams achieve greater collaboration with ease.

This article is part of BizTech's AgilITy blog series. Please join the discussion on Twitter by using the #SmallBizIT hashtag.