AI Voice Automation cuts wait times and service costs
A national energy supplier struggled with long waiting times, rising call volumes, and staffing shortages.
The AI Voice Agent automates repetitive customer questions, reduces pressure on live agents, and delivers faster, more scalable 24/7 service.
Industry
Energy sector
Duration
6 months
Scope
AI Voice Agent integrated with CRM, billing, and knowledge management systems to automate repetitive customer-service calls and enable scalable 24/7 support.
ibc role
Design and implementation of the AI Voice Agent, including call intent analysis, conversational design, LLM training, workflow integration, compliance checks and scaling
Channels in scope
AI Voice Agent, CRM + billing system integration, performance dashboards, 24/7 automated voice channel
Context
From long waiting times to scalable, AI driven customer service
A national energy supplier with over 450,000 customers faced increasing pressure on its customer‑contact center. Rising call volumes, staffing shortages, and high operational costs led to long waiting times and declining customer satisfaction. Traditional measures such as hiring additional staff were no longer scalable or financially viable.
The AI Voice Agent introduces automated intent recognition, integrated system lookups, and 24/7 availability. This is transforming the voice channel from a bottleneck into a scalable, digital-first service experience.
Challenge
Excessive manual workload causing long waiting times and rising service costs
The contact center was overwhelmed by rising call volumes, with a large share of conversations consisting of repetitive, standard questions. Agents spent substantial time handling routine inquiries, while staffing shortages and high operational pressure made it difficult to keep up.
Waiting times regularly exceeded eight minutes during peak periods, leading to service bottlenecks, increased error risk, and growing pressure on both employees and customer satisfaction. Without automation or 24/7 availability, the organization could not scale its service capacity sustainably.
The outcome: customer satisfaction declined and operational costs continued to rise.
- 35% of all calls were repetitive standard questions
- Waiting times exceeded 8 minutes during peaks
- High personnel costs due to manual handling
- Agent absenteeism caused by workload pressure
- No 24/7 service availability
What we did
We implemented an AI Voice Agent to automate repetitive calls
ibc introduced an AI Voice Agent as an integrated layer within the customer‑service operation, automating high‑volume, repetitive calls and reducing pressure on live employees. Using intent recognition, CRM and billing integrations, and optimized conversational flows, routine questions were handled end‑to‑end without human intervention.
Through a structured approach (analysis, implementation, and scaling) the contact center transitioned from long waiting times and staff shortages to fast, consistent, 24/7 service. This allowed employees to focus on complex, high‑value customer questions while the AI covered standard inquiries.
Actions taken:
- Phase Analysis: Call analysis and intent recognition, Identification of high-volume use cases, Business case and ROI calculation
- Phase Implementation: Development of conversational flows, Integration with CRM and billing system, Training LLM model on customer data, Compliance check (GDPR)
- Phase Scaling up: Continuous optimization based on data, Addition of new intents, 24/7 availability
The Solution we delivered:
- An AI‑driven voice automation architecture fully integrated into CRM and knowledge management, enabling scalable, 24/7 customer service.
Results
Substantial improvements in waiting times, cost efficiency, and customer satisfaction
Within six months, the AI Voice Agent transformed the customer‑service operation by automating repetitive calls, reducing dependency on manual handling, and ensuring 24/7 availability. Routine questions were resolved instantly, waiting times dropped sharply, and agents could redirect their time toward complex and high‑value conversations.
The organization gained real-time visibility into customer intents and workload, while overall service performance improved across all major KPIs.
-42% in live‑agent call volume
Waiting times reduced from 8 to 2 minutes
+14% Customer satisfaction
-28% Contact‑center costs
24/7 availability achieved without adding staff
Employees could focus on complex, value‑adding customer cases
Our Promise
Why AI Voice Automation works:
Feedback
Customer struggled with high volumes, rising costs, and staff shortages.
Feature
Our AI Voice Agent combines natural language processing with integration into your existing systems.
Advantage
Automation of repetitive customer questions, while complex questions are seamlessly forwarded to employees.
Results
This leads to lower costs, shorter wait times, higher customer satisfaction, and scalable service capacity.
Thomas Kuijer
Contact
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