Upstream Works: Simplifying Customer Engagement with AI

While Artificial Intelligence (AI) is creating a new era of business enhancements, there are also a variety of challenges associated with the novel technology. As widely used in a variety of applications, AI as a SILO can easily provide a net new messaging interface to support chatbot escalations that is incompatible with the existing agent messaging channel. AI agent assist applications are not typically integrated into the desktop and act as a standalone application on the desktop, causing application flipping and additional mouse clicks and complexity. When used, AI is often not data-driven concerning what is implemented in the AI application, and with respect to how well it is working. Upstream Works addresses these issues with a single desktop and a Virtual Agent Portal that provides real-time agent assistance, and with data that can be used to both direct and report on AI. AI does not provide any history of interactions; Upstream Works provides Interaction History that can be integrated with AI to provide future context.

The company brings over 15 years of award-winning omnichannel innovation and contact center expertise with best-in-class market solutions. The company enables a variety of organizations to provide exceptional user experiences that benefit from rewarding customer engagements while leveraging existing investments. Upstream Works has always focused on fixing the problem of desktop silos and disparate applications for agents. In fact, Upstream Works doesn’t have a horse in the AI race. “Our sole focus is to ensure that when the AI is operationalized, it can provide real business value and be used easily and consistently by the agent. As most AI requires integration and may interface with an agent, Upstream Works is a necessary component of a contact center AI implementation that involves any type of agent/AI interaction,” explains Rob McDougall, CEO, Upstream Works.

Upstream Works understands that agent desktop applications are usually an afterthought by many companies, and it is often the root cause of poor customer service. AI and other channels drive desktop complexity and can easily drive poor customer service. The Upstream Works agent desktop seamlessly integrates with multiple AI and business applications, enabling agents to be more productive and have a greater impact on CX without adding desktop complexity. Our suite of AI application integration capabilities supports automation, agent abilities, and interaction data strategies for a better end-to-end customer experience. The solution flexibility allows organizations to take a targeted approach and select the AI application to meet their specific needs including Amazon Lex, Amelia, Google Dialogflow, IBM Watson, Microsoft AI, Simplifai, Uniphore, and more.

Since opening its doors, Upstream Works has been a pioneer in delivering cutting-edge solutions to its clients. What started as a boutique CTI provider, has grown to be a global solution provider.

“Our there-must-be-a-better-way moment came about as a result of watching contact centers deal with this desktop complexity. We responded with Upstart, an application that was designed to provide business interaction management in 2007. Upstart was the original omnichannel desktop solution, predating the category by about 6 years,” adds McDougall.

As part of its growth plan, Upstream Works invests in its R&D budget, investing over 30% of its ongoing revenues into R&D. “We have three types of development – the main one being our core product development group. On top of that, we have customer-driven development, where we can implement new features that are customer driven very quickly. Meanwhile, we are also expanding our platform support footprint. Along with the platform expansion, we continue to provide integration capabilities for AI applications to help businesses operationalize their AI investments properly,” concludes McDougall.