Lenovo is popping to its longstanding partnership with IBM to improve its customer service with blockchain and AI-powered equipment. Under the new, multi-year settlement, Lenovo will use IBM’s gear to help customer support marketers and technicians within the Data Center Group — supporting Lenovo’s ThinkSystem and ThinkAgile systems.
Lenovo’s courting with IBM dates back to 2005 when the Chinese tech firm acquired IBM’s PC business. In 2014, Lenovo bought IBM’s x86 server commercial enterprise. Last year, Lenovo signed a $240 million deal with IBM to enhance the customer support experience inside its PC department.
The new settlement leverages blockchain to create a more relaxed and obvious environment for the purchasing and distribution of essential hardware and software equipment for Lenovo’s records facilities. Additionally, IBM will provide Lenovo with a Client Insight Portal for statistics analytics and fashion evaluation.
Lenovo’s more than 19,000 field marketers get admission to to augmented fact gear, as a way to help them paintings in real time with customers and IBM professionals to diagnose troubles and find solutions for machines requiring restore.
Lastly, Lenovo name center retailers get help from IBM’s Virtual Assistant for Technical Support, which makes use of natural language competencies and contextual reputation to customize client conversations. It faucets into customer history and options, product manuals, technical documentation, and another record to be had to name middle retailers to help with calls.
The normal purpose, in keeping with Laura Laltrello, GM of Lenovo’s Data Center Group, is “to deliver a customized and seamless enjoy.”
Research from carriers like Zendesk display that more youthful generations mainly are in search of more customized customer service experiences and are typically constructive approximately the blessings AI can bring to this location. According to Salesforce facts, use of AI by way of customer service teams is projected to grow with the aid of 143 percent over the next 18 months.
Meanwhile, IBM points to its very own studies to show how high priced and inefficient contemporary customer support operations are: More than $1 trillion is spent on 265 billion customer service calls each yr, with 50 percent of these calls going unresolved.
IBM also said on Thursday that Regions Bank, a Fortune 500 economic organization, has signed up for the Watson AI platform to reinforce its customer service competencies. Specifically, Regions Bank is the use of the Watson-enabled Banker Assist tool, which shall we buddies search for records thru an AI-powered seek bar, to help customer service workforce offer greater constant solutions and quicker decision instances.
Additionally, Regions is the use of WatsonAssistant to answer a few ordinary customer calls immediately. Over time the assistant will be trained to recognize a client’s tone and when they must be transferred to a stay agent.
