NewDay, a company focused on facilitating responsible access to credit, has launched an innovative solution in its customer service center that promises to transform the user experience. This tool, called NewAssist, originated from a hackathon held in early 2024, aimed at exploring how generative artificial intelligence can accelerate customer query resolutions.
With approximately four million customers, NewDay faces the challenge of managing nearly 2.5 million calls a year. In this context, having advanced technologies is crucial. NewAssist acts as a real-time artificial intelligence assistant designed to support agents in their interactions with customers, leveraging voice-to-text conversion capabilities.
The development team encountered several obstacles along the way, including cost management and a lack of adequate infrastructure. However, they decided to change their approach, setting aside the idea of a fully developed voice assistant and opting for a chatbot that allowed them to test concepts and validate their knowledge management system.
The technical implementation of NewAssist was based on principles of experimentation and agility. A multidisciplinary team conducted rapid iterations that increased the system’s accuracy from an initial 60% to 80% in a short period. Using AWS tools, such as Amazon Bedrock, NewAssist’s architecture focuses on augmented generation through retrieval, providing relevant responses based on the context of the questions.
One of the key learnings during this process was the importance of having quality data. By developing a custom parser for knowledge articles, the team was able to optimize response accuracy. Additionally, they implemented a feedback system that allowed them to adapt to how agents utilized the assistant, leading to training NewAssist in the use of acronyms and technical terms.
After a testing phase with ten agents, which helped identify resources in the knowledge base, NewAssist improved its performance, achieving accuracy above 90%. This paved the way for its expansion to over 150 agents and opened the possibility of extending its use to other departments, such as Fraud and Collections.
In conclusion, NewDay’s experience with NewAssist underscores that the combination of advanced technology and a user-centered approach can lead to significant improvements in customer service. As they continue to refine this solution, NewDay positions itself at the forefront of innovations in contact center technology, with a strong emphasis on experimentation and adapting to the real needs of their agents and customers.
Source: MiMub in Spanish
