Your call is no longer important to us - so we've replaced our human staff with a chatbot.
That's the message businesses can easily send when deploying AI to communicate with customers.
So best of luck to the growing numbers of companies now using an AI-powered Contact Center offering from Zoom, which has confirmed an uptick in customers, a "record-setting deal" with a tax authority and growth in its enterprise business.
The pandemic-propelled "cloud communications" firm's latest results reveal that its Q3 revenue grew by roughly 4% year over year to $1.178 billion. Contact Center service is now used by 1,250 customers, an 82% increase, whilst its book of enterprise customers at the end of Q3 jumped to 192,400.
Zoom's product is an omnichannel service that "humanizes customer experience" using AI. It offers a chatbot and various other features to improve the productivity of the unfortunate folk who work in call centres and offer some relief to irascible customers on the other end of the line.
Zoom's leaders jumped on an earnings call to discuss its successful quarter after admitting the company's performance "troughed" in Q2.
READ MORE: Zoom makes big call on AI. Says it will pay off. Eventually
Michelle Chang, Chief Financial Officer, said: "Our enterprise revenue grew approximately 6% year over year, reflecting a continued shift to enterprise, which now makes up 59% of our total revenue."
She added: "In our enterprise business, we saw 7% year-over-year customer growth in the up-market as we ended the quarter with just shy of 4,000 customers contributing more than $100,000 in trailing twelve-month revenue. These customers now make up 31% of our revenue, up 2 points year over year."
Zoom has been following an "AI-first vision" and recently signed a 20,000-seat Contact Center deal with the Spanish tax authority, Agencia Tributaria.
Eric Yuan, CEO and Founder, said: "In a very busy tax season, Zoom delivered a greater performance. They really trust the Zoom."
Yuan has been closely following the progress of the Spanish taxman's AI experiment. "I still wear the head of Zoom Contact Center general manager," he said, according to a transcription of the earnings call.
Which does not mean, of course, that he killed the former manager and is now wearing their head, but is instead an indication of his deep involvement in the project.
The CEO added. "Our architecture are very scalable. That's the reason why the customers, they are very, very happy to deploy the Zoom Contact Center."
Zoom is also focused on introducing a second version of its AI Companion, which will be released in the second half of next year.
"Not only do we offer the free service for AI Companion, but enterprise customization certainly can help us in terms of monetisation," Yuan added.
He continued: "This major update allows the AI Companion to see a broader window of context, synthesize information from internal and external sources, and orchestrate action across the platform. AI Companion 2.0 raises the bar for AI and demonstrates to customers that we understand their needs. They want AI to enhance their existing workflows, not disrupt them."
Earlier this year, Zoom released its Workplace collaboration platform that includes a raft of new features including document editing and sharing, continuous chat, real-time office room bookings, integrations with other suites and "AI-powered" live transcripts.
