GuideContact center · 6 min
AI for customer experience: which kinds fit our contact center, and how should we pay?
Match the AI to the customer moment: AI agents for routine contacts, agent assist for your people, analytics for every call. Then pay the way each one is used.
The Clectiv team ·
AI can make your customer experience better at four different moments, and each kind is sold a different way. Match the AI to the job first. Then set your volume and your definition of "resolved," and the proposals finally compare.
Which kinds of AI fit which customer experience jobs?#
Start from the moment in the customer's day, not from the product. Each moment has its own kind of AI, and each kind is usually priced its own way.
| The moment | The AI that fits | Usually priced |
|---|---|---|
| A routine question, any hour | AI agents on voice and chat that finish the contact on their own | Per minute, per conversation or per resolution |
| A customer on the line with a person | Agent assist, which suggests answers and writes the notes | Per seat |
| After every contact | Automated quality scoring (auto QA) on every call and chat | Per seat |
| Across all of them | Analytics that show what customers keep contacting you about | Per seat or by volume |
The AI comes one of two ways. It's built into your contact center platform, or it comes from a provider that works alongside the platform you keep.
Here are some of our providers that do it. Five9, Genesys, Talkdesk and NICE sell platforms with AI built in, and PolyAI, SoundHound AI, Sprinklr and Kore.ai sell AI agents.
They're among the contact center providers we work with, and Clectiv AI runs the process with them on your behalf: start a project.
Before you call anyone#
Your customer moments, your volume and your definition of "resolved" go into Clectiv AI before a platform or AI provider prices anything. From there Clectiv AI runs the process, bidding it out to the providers that fit so they compete, and you choose the one you like. Call one first and you get its kind of AI, its pricing model and a demo built to make both look good.
What are the pricing arrangements?#
Four, and most proposals mix two of them. The AI that helps your people is usually priced per seat. The AI that handles contacts on its own is usually priced by use.
| Model | What you pay for | Watch for |
|---|---|---|
| Per seat | Each agent, per month, used or not | Seats nobody uses |
| Per minute | Each minute the AI is on a call | Long calls |
| Per conversation | Each contact the AI touches, solved or not | Paying for the ones it fails |
| Per resolution | Each contact the AI finishes without a person | Whose definition of "resolved" counts |
There's usually a platform fee on top. The contact center platform itself is priced per seat, so make each proposal show the platform and the AI as separate lines.
Per resolution needs a definition, and your plan writes it. Write it down with Clectiv AI before anyone bids: no handoff to a person, and no repeat contact about the same thing within a window you set. Count it in your reports, not only the provider's dashboard, and it goes into the contract word for word.
The work's been done before. Clectiv AI runs the process we've used before, so you start where other buyers left off. The best pricing, terms and contract we can get come from taking the plan straight to these providers.
How do we get the right one at the right price?#
Pick the job, then turn every proposal into cost per contact, at your volume. That's the only number that lines them up.
- Set your volume. Contacts a month, by channel, and the share you expect the AI to handle on its own.
- Price three cases. The AI handles less than you hoped, about what you expected, and more. A model that wins in one case can lose in another.
- Add the platform and the seats. Per-resolution AI still runs on a platform you pay for per seat.
The plan adds the rest, from launch costs to total cost over the term, so you compare the real number and not the headline rate.
Two proposals with the same price per resolution can cost very different amounts, because one counts a transfer to a person as resolved and the other doesn't. Your plan sets the definition and the volume with Clectiv AI, so the gap between them is real, and you can push on it.
Common questions#
Which kind of AI should we start with for customer experience?#
What are AI agents here?#
What counts as a resolution?#
Which pricing model is cheapest?#
Do we still pay for the contact center platform with per-resolution AI?#
How does Clectiv AI get this done?#
Clectiv AI is step one. Tell it how many agents you have and what customers contact you about. It scopes the project with you and writes your plan: agents, channels, what the AI should take, what your people keep, and what has to plug in.
Then the Clectiv team takes your plan to the contact center and AI-agent providers that fit, all at once, through our partner network of 620+ providers. They compete for your business with real bids, the team pushes on terms, and you choose.
Companies like yours did this before you. Clectiv AI runs the process other companies used, so you start where they finished. With the plan straight in front of the providers that fit, you get the best pricing, terms and contract we can.
All of this is free to you, and it's days, not months. Everything we cover in contact center is on the contact center page.
Still on-prem? Read how to move a contact center to the cloud.
Picking the first job for AI? Read AI in the contact center: where to start, and for AI that does the work itself, agentic AI in the contact center.
Sources and method. No prices appear in this guide. Pricing arrangements describe how contact center AI is commonly sold, not any one provider's terms. Provider names are examples of who sells contact center platforms and AI agents, from Clectiv's provider directory, not a ranking.