Customer service is one of the most important aspects of any business. The best brands in the world are always looking to for new ways to provide better service and customer experience. IVRs, omni-channel communications, and online chat have been the state of the art for 20 years.
But over the past 5 years, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has worked its way into the mainstream of customer care.
The best brands are now using AI to provide world-class customer engagement and support. AI is improving response times by handling repetitive tasks for agents and directly supporting customer requests. And it is giving the best brands an edge by providing insights into how to provide better customer support.
Examples of AI in Customer Service
Here are examples of how leaders are using AI in customer service today:
Enhancing existing contact center technologies
Empowering customers with self-service options
Learning more about customers and their needs
Improving customer satisfaction and retention
Optimizing customer service processes and strategies
Let's take a look at each of these benefits in more detail.
Enhancing existing contact center technologies
AI helps businesses improve their customer service by adding new capabilities to their existing contact center technologies. Many modern contact center platforms contain robust AI features, but you can add AI even if you have older technology. Modern CPaaS (communications platform as a service) easily connects to your existing contact center and brings AI along for the ride. No need to rip and replace your existing technology.
Here three ways companies are using AI customer service solutions today:
AI helps agents work faster by transcribing speech to text and translating languages in real time.
AI can help match customers with the best available agents based on their skills, availability, preferences, and history. AI can also help schedule appointments and callbacks for customers who need further assistance.
AI helps agents perform better by providing them with real-time information, suggestions, feedback, and training.
Empowering customers with self-service options
AI also helps businesses improve their customer service by enabling customer to do more on their own. It can enable customers to answer common questions and manage their service without having to speak to an agent. This can be done by using chatbots, which are automated conversational agents that can interact with customers via text or voice.
By using chatbots, businesses can improve customer satisfaction by reducing wait times, increasing availability, and providing personalized solutions. Chatbots can also free up agents to focus on more complex and high-value requests that require human empathy and creativity.
Chatbots can help customers with tasks such as:
Checking account balances and statuses
Updating personal information and preferences
Ordering products and services
Booking appointments and reservations
Reporting problems and requesting support
Learning more about customers and their needs
The third way AI can improve customer service is by enabling businesses to know more about their customers and their needs.
AI helps by:
Analyzing customer interactions with human agents, customer queries, customer data, and interactions through the website and customer service chatbot. AI tools for customer service can generate insights and recommendations to improve customer experience, products, and services. These tools can also help businesses understand customer behavior, preferences, feedback, and satisfaction.
Personalizing customer interactions: AI can help businesses use the insights and recommendations they generate to personalize their customer interactions. For example, AI can help tailor offers, promotions, content, and messages based on customer profiles, segments, and contexts.
Optimizing customer service processes and strategies
A fourth way AI can help businesses improve their customer service is by optimizing their customer service processes and strategies.
AI can help with this by:
Automating repetitive tasks that are time-consuming, error-prone, or low-value. This can help businesses save time, money, and resources that can be invested in more strategic activities.
Enhancing their decision making by providing them with data-driven insights, predictions, simulations, and scenarios. This can help businesses make better informed decisions that align with their goals and objectives.
Helping businesses innovate new solutions that can improve their customer service. For example, AI be used to create new products or services that meet customer needs or expectations
Improving customer satisfaction and retention
Finally, AI powered customer support helps improve customer satisfaction and retention.
Responsive support and the ability to self-service result in increased customer loyalty and more referrals. AI powered customer service enables businesses of all sizes to move faster and more effectively than ever before. And AI quickly pays for itself through improved customer retention, savings from optimization, and increased revenue from referrals.
Leading companies are now taking an AI-driven approach in their customer support and customer experience strategy.
Contact us today to to learn more about how AI in customer support can take your business to the next level.