What Is Agent Guidance?

Agent guidance is a category of artificial intelligence (AI) applications designed to support and assist customer service agents in real time during interactions. As its name implies, an agent guidance solution “guides” agents toward delivering efficient and accurate customer service experiences. It does this by providing intelligent prompts, relevant information, and decision-making recommendations via their contact center desktop.

This capability often leverages natural language processing (NLP), machine learning and predictive analytics to interpret customer conversations and offer actionable insights. Advanced agent guidance solutions, like Uniphore’s Real-Time Guidance Agent, leverage emotion AI and sentiment analysis to incorporate critical contextual information into the guided experience. This added layer guides agents on where and when to apply empathy based on a customer’s emotional, tonal, and sentiment cues.

At its core, agent guidance bridges the gap between human expertise and AI efficiency, fostering seamless collaboration between agents and technology.

How does agent guidance work?

Agent guidance works by adding a layer of intelligence to a company’s existing customer support tools, such as customer relationship management (CRM) systems or contact center software. By integrating with these (and other) customer support tools, agent guidance solutions can provide system users (i.e. agents) with: 

Real-time conversational analysis

Agent guidance systems continuously analyze customer interactions, including voice, text, or chat, to understand intent, tone, and context.

Actionable suggestions

Based on this analysis, the AI delivers contextually relevant suggestions, such as recommended next steps, knowledge base articles, or cross-sell opportunities.

Decision support

Agent guidance provides predictions or recommendations that empower agents to make more informed decisions.

Knowledge assistance

Agent guidance can surface relevant information from enterprise knowledge in real time, eliminating the need for agents to search across multiple systems.

Task automation

Agent guidance solutions don’t just point agents in the right direction; they work alongside them, automatically taking notes, summarizing calls, and tracking follow-up actions.

Continuous learning

With every interaction, the AI improves, using machine learning to refine its suggestions and adapt to evolving customer needs.

By streamlining the process of understanding and addressing customer issues, agent guidance allows agents to focus on delivering exceptional service without the need for extensive manual research. Let’s now explore how these capabilities translate to real benefits across the contact center.

Benefits of an agent guidance solution

Agent guidance offers a host of transformative benefits to customer service teams and businesses alike. In fact, CMSWire expects the number of contact centers that use AI software, including agent guidance solutions, to grow by double digits over the next few years. Here are a few ways it is making an impact—and rapidly gaining favor with enterprise businesses: 

Enhanced agent performance: By reducing their cognitive load, agents can focus on the human aspect of conversations, leading to improved engagement and satisfaction.
Improved efficiency: Real-time suggestions cut down on response times, enabling agents to resolve issues faster.
Higher customer satisfaction: Tailored responses and seamless service experiences result in happier customers.
Consistency across interactions: Agent guidance ensures uniformity in messaging and service quality, no matter which agent handles the interaction.
Scalability: With AI-powered support, companies can handle high volumes of customer queries without sacrificing quality.

Common use cases for agent guidance

Various industries use agent guidance to improve customer support. And with the rise of agentic AI, that number will only grow. By enabling organizations to build their own, domain-specific guidance agents, agentic AI platforms, like Uniphore’s Business AI Cloud, are fueling the next generation of enterprise use cases.

While needs may vary from business to business, many organizations build agent guidance use cases around similar goals. Here are some of the most common applications in use today: 

Contact centers

Contact center agent guidance is the use case most people are most familiar with. In contact centers, agent guidance assists agents during high-volume call periods by providing instant responses to frequently asked questions.

E-commerce support

In e-commerce interactions, agent guidance solutions can help retail employees recommend personalized product suggestions or troubleshooting steps for customers.

Healthcare

The solution can also guide agents in the healthcare industry in providing accurate information about medical appointments or insurance claims.

Banking

In the financial sector, agent guidance supports agents with compliance-approved scripts during sensitive conversations.

These use cases highlight how agent guidance empowers organizations to deliver superior service in any customer-facing role. However, just as no two businesses are alike, not all agent guidance solutions are the same. Next, we’ll explore the critical questions and considerations businesses should take into account when evaluating agent guidance software vendors.

What to look for when evaluating agent guidance solutions

Today, there are a growing number of vendors offering agent guidance solutions. While many boast a menu of impressive capabilities, it’s important for businesses to consider foremost what challenges they’re trying to solve with agent guidance. Start with the use cases that matter most to you and find a solution with the capabilities that match your needs. And don’t just focus on the here and now—the solution you choose should accommodate your future needs as you grow and scale.

That said, here are several best practices for evaluating agent guidance solutions:

Start with use cases

Are you looking to resolve customer issues faster? Are you trying to drive efficiency and/or cut costs? The right agent guidance solution should be able to start impacting your target use cases right away.

Focus on driving real outcomes

Everyone wants to improve customer satisfaction, but what exactly does that mean for your organization? When building your agent guidance use case(s), make sure the goals you want to achieve are measurable and linked to real outcomes.

Zero in on the metrics that matter

If increasing first call resolution (FCR) is your primary goal, focus on that. Don’t try to impact too many metrics at once. There will be plenty of time to fine tune once you’ve optimized your original use case. After all, that’s the beauty of AI—it gets better as it learns.

Plan for future growth

Many agent guidance solutions are built for now. The problem with that is they can’t adapt to your needs as your business grows. By choosing a solution built on a composable AI platform, you can “future-proof” your agent guidance investment indefinitely.

Agent guidance is the future of customer service

As customer expectations continue to evolve, agent guidance is playing an increasingly pivotal role in shaping customer service experiences. Innovations like emotional AI, advanced speech analytics, and hyper-personalization are already enhancing the capabilities of agent guidance tools. In fact, enterprises today can take advantage of these game-changing capabilities and technologies with next-generation solutions like Uniphore’s Real-Time Guidance Agent. These tools offer organizations the flexibility to adapt to new and emerging AI trends and developments through continuous improvement and ongoing vendor support.

The ultimate goal of any agent guidance solution is to create a balance of human empathy and AI precision. This ensures that customer interactions are not only efficient; they are also meaningful. That’s the difference between traditional customer support and AI-guided service. With today’s agent guidance solutions, agents are more than just order-takers and troubleshooters—they’re relationship builders driving lifetime value with every interaction.

Learn more about Uniphore

Uniphore is at the forefront of conversational AI and automation, enabling enterprises to redefine their customer service experiences. To learn how Uniphore is transforming the way businesses communicate with their customers, explore our homepage.

Want to expand your understanding of conversational AI and related technologies? Check out our glossary.