How to use contact center AI: Step-by-step guide

Is your support team swamped? Wish they could handle more, faster, without burning out? Let’s talk about contact center AI. It’s not some far-off future tech anymore; it’s a tool businesses are using right now to change how they handle customer support across pretty much every channel – phone, chat, email, social media, you name it.

Using AI in your contact center means you can automate the routine stuff, help your human agents with tricky questions, and give customers instant support around the clock. Companies using AI are seeing real savings in time and money. In fact, Salesforce research found that 95% of decision makers at companies already using AI report saving costs and time, and a big 79% of service organizations are putting money into it. But how do you actually get started with all this? This guide is here to walk you through the practical steps to get contact center AI up and running effectively. Picking the right AI partner, like eesel AI, can seriously smooth out this whole process and help you build a system that actually works for you.

What you’ll need

Before you jump into setting up contact center AI, you’ll need a few key things ready. Having these lined up makes the whole process a lot simpler.

First off, you’ll need your current helpdesk or contact center platform. The AI solution will connect with this platform to see tickets and talk to customers or agents. Examples include:

• Zendesk
• Intercom
• Freshdesk
• Salesforce Service Cloud
• Dialpad

You’ll also need places where your AI can learn from – basically, your knowledge and data sources. This includes:

• Help center articles
• Internal documents (like stuff in Google Docs, Confluence, SharePoint, or Notion)
• Past support tickets
• FAQs
• How-to guides (SOPs)

Good, organized data is super important if you want your AI to be accurate and helpful. And maybe most importantly, you need a clear picture of what you want the AI to achieve and an AI platform that can connect with your existing systems and data sources. Finding an AI platform built for easy connections, like eesel AI, is really helpful for getting things done right.

Step 1: Define your goals and use cases for contact center AI

Before you even start looking at the tech, you need to figure out exactly what you want your contact center AI to do. Trying to automate absolutely everything at once can feel overwhelming and might not give you the best results. Instead, let’s focus on specific areas where AI can make a noticeable difference.

Think about those tasks that eat up your agents’ time every day. Are there questions that pop up constantly, like “How do I reset my password?” or “Where’s my order?” These are perfect for what’s called Tier 1 ticket automation. That’s where an AI agent can handle the whole conversation without needing a human.

Other great spots for AI include:

• Intelligent triage: Using AI to automatically send incoming tickets to the right agent or team based on what the customer is asking, their language, or how they sound (their sentiment). It cuts down on manual sorting and gets tickets to the right person faster.
• Agent assist: Helping human agents in real-time by suggesting answers or finding relevant articles.
• Automated summaries: Automatically summarizing cases for quick agent review.
• 24/7 self-service: Offering support through chatbots on your website around the clock.

Platforms like eesel AI are actually built to help with these specific things, making it easier for businesses to quickly get solutions for Tier 1 automation and intelligent triage up and running to see results fast. Knowing exactly what you want the AI to accomplish upfront will really guide you through the whole setup process.

Step 2: Prepare your data and systems

Once you know what you want your contact center AI to do, the next big step is getting the information it will learn from and the systems it will work within ready. AI is only as smart as the data you give it, so having clean, well-organized knowledge is key to getting accurate and helpful answers.

Round up all your important documents. Old tickets are a goldmine because they show you how customers actually talk and what solutions worked. But you need to get them into a format the AI can use.

Important data sources include:

• Help center articles
• Internal guides
• FAQs
• Past customer conversations

You’ll also need to figure out which of your current systems the AI platform needs to connect with. This definitely includes your helpdesk, but it might also involve other platforms if you want the AI to do things like fetch order details.

Relevant systems to connect include:

• Helpdesk (like Zendesk, Intercom, or Freshdesk)
• CRM
• Internal databases
• E-commerce platforms like Shopify or BigCommerce

This is where a platform like eesel AI really shines. It’s built to train on all sorts of sources, including automatically turning those past tickets into usable knowledge. Plus, it can automatically sync with platforms like Google Docs, Confluence, and your help centers, so the AI’s knowledge stays fresh without you having to manually update it all the time.

Step 3: Choose and integrate your contact center AI platform

Now that you know your goals and have your data ready, it’s time to pick the AI platform that will power your contact center. This is a pretty important choice, because the right platform will fit in nicely and grow with you, while the wrong one can just cause headaches and unexpected costs. You’ve basically got two main options here: use the AI features built into your current helpdesk, or bring in a specialized third-party AI solution.

While the AI tools that come with your helpdesk, like those from Zendesk, might seem easy because they’re already there, they often have limits on how much you can customize them, how well you can test them, and how clear the pricing is. Many require expensive add-ons for anything beyond the basics and might charge you based on confusing things like “automated resolutions” (which could include interactions that didn’t actually solve the customer’s problem), leading to costs that are hard to predict as you get busier.

A specialized third-party platform like eesel AI is designed specifically to fix these issues. eesel AI has straightforward, pay-per-interaction pricing. That means you only pay for the AI help you actually use, with no fees per agent. It connects deeply with major helpdesks like Zendesk, Intercom, and Freshdesk, and also has lots of integrations with internal systems and custom API options so the AI can do real things like issue refunds or update accounts. Unlike simpler bots that just repeat information, eesel AI uses advanced language models and learns from multiple sources to give smart, helpful answers that actually lead to action. Getting it set up is usually pretty simple – you just connect your helpdesk and knowledge sources within the AI platform’s dashboard.

Step 4: Configure and train your AI agent

Connecting your AI platform is just the start; the real fun happens when you set it up and train it. This is where you shape the AI to understand your business, sound like your brand, and do the specific jobs you decided on back in Step 1.

Setting it up involves defining how the AI should act and sound. You don’t want a generic robot voice; you want an AI that feels like part of your team. This means setting up things like:

• Greetings and sign-offs
• Its language and tone to match your brand’s voice
• When to hand things off to a human

Platforms like eesel AI let you customize the instructions you give the AI a lot, so you can tell it exactly how to behave, respond, and even when to hand things off to a human.

Next, you’ll set up the workflows and actions the AI should take. This is more than just answering questions. You can tell it to automatically:

• Tag tickets based on what they’re about
• Send them to specific teams
• Grab order details from your e-commerce platform using API calls

eesel AI‘s flexible action setup lets you decide exactly when and how these things happen based on the ticket details.

Finally, you train the AI using the data you got ready in Step 2. This is where the AI learns from your knowledge base, past tickets, and documents. Remember that advantage eesel AI has? Its ability to train on multiple sources, including processing your past tickets into useful knowledge, helps it understand things much better than tools that only look at help center articles.

Step 5: Test, refine, and roll out

Launching a new AI agent without testing it properly is like serving food without tasting it first – you might end up with unhappy customers. Testing is a super important phase to make sure your AI works the way you expect before it starts talking to all your customers.

Start by trying out conversations within the AI platform’s testing area. Ask the AI questions covering different topics and difficulty levels, including tricky ones or questions that could be unclear. Pay close attention to:

• Whether its answers are right
• If it sounds okay
• If it knows when to escalate or do an action

Get feedback from a small group of people on your team or agents who use the AI in a controlled setting. Use what they tell you to improve the AI’s training data, tweak its instructions, and adjust its workflows.

Unlike some platforms that don’t offer much testing and make you launch everything at once, eesel AI has specific simulation tools. This lets you test how the bot handles past tickets and see how many it solves or where its knowledge is missing before you go live. It also lets you roll it out gradually.

Gradual rollout methods include:

• Letting a small group of agents use it first
• Only applying it to certain types of tickets at first

This step-by-step approach lowers the risk and lets you make changes based on real, but limited, interactions before a bigger launch.

Step 6: Monitor performance and measure ROI

Getting contact center AI up and running isn’t a one-and-done thing; it’s something you’ll want to keep an eye on and improve over time. Once your AI is live, tracking how it’s doing is key to making sure it’s giving you the results you wanted and showing a clear return on your investment.

Figure out which key numbers (metrics) match the goals you set back in Step 1. Use the reports and analytics tools your AI platform provides to check these numbers regularly. Look at the types of questions the AI handles well and where it struggles. This info can help you spot gaps in its knowledge or areas where you need to give it more training or adjust its settings.

Common metrics to track include:

• Deflection rate (how many tickets the AI solves by itself)
• Average handle time (AHT) reduction for tickets the AI helps with
• Changes in Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) scores
• Overall agent productivity

eesel AI has built-in reporting tools, including something called a Knowledge Gap Analysis. This specifically points out where the AI couldn’t find a good answer, helping you see exactly what training data is missing. It also has an ROI Calculator to help you put a number on the time and money you’re saving, clearly showing the value your AI is bringing.

Tips for success and common pitfalls

Bringing contact center AI into your team can be a game changer, but it’s important to roll it out the right way.

The biggest tip? Keep your human team in the loop. AI is there to help your agents, not take their place. Get them comfortable with it early on, and show them how tools like an AI Assistant or Copilot can make their work easier by drafting replies and pulling up info fast. Start small with a few clear tasks, see how it goes, and adjust as you learn.

A few quick tips to keep you on track:

• Involve agents from the start.
• Pick a few high-impact tasks to automate first.
• Use feedback and performance data to improve.
• Keep your data clean and updated.
• Always stay on top of privacy and security.

And a few common mistakes to watch out for:

• Using poor or messy data to train your AI.
• Trying to automate too much too fast.
• Not getting buy-in from your team.
• Ignoring performance numbers.
• Choosing tools that are pricey or hard to scale.

Choosing the right platform, like eesel AI, can make all the difference — it’s flexible, transparent, and designed to help you succeed without surprises.

Ready to implement contact center AI?

Adding contact center AI is a smart move that can make your support faster, keep customers happier, and cut costs. By setting clear goals, preparing your data, choosing the right platform, training your AI, testing carefully, and tracking results, you’ll set yourself up for success.

The right partner makes all the difference. eesel AI is built to help you do it right. It’s flexible, easy to integrate with tools like Zendesk, Intercom, and Freshdesk, and uses clear pay-per-interaction pricing with no hidden fees or confusing limits. With strong training options (including your past tickets), customizable workflows, and solid testing tools, eesel AI makes automation feel seamless and practical.

Want to see it in action? Book a demo or start a free trial today, and don’t worry, no credit card needed!