AI CUSTOMER SERVICE: AI in Customer Service & Why You Need It

ai customer support
Image source: ScienceSoft

The rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is paving the way for greater efficiency in businesses, particularly in customer service. AI-powered customer service allows you to gain deeper insights and provide a better user experience. This improves online customer experience, retention rates, brand image, preventive care, and even revenue generation. AI is anticipated to increase company productivity by up to 40% by 2035. Although chatbots are a popular way to artificial intelligence in customer service, modern AI solutions provide much more. Here’s all you need to know about AI in customer service and its benefits.

What is an AI Customer Service Chatbot?

AI customer service chatbots are software program that mimics human communication. These programs enable people to speak with computers in a natural and conversational manner. AI-powered support bots, which have been enhanced with artificial intelligence, learn from every client encounter, growing wiser and more accurate over time.

How AI is Used in Customer Service Automation

AI can be utilized in customer service to help workers streamline procedures while also improving client experiences through automation. Support ticket sorters and chatbots are two of the more common uses of AI in this field, but that’s really only the tip of the morning burrito.

The applications of artificial intelligence in contact centers, eCommerce platforms, and service-related sales phases are nearly unlimited. The AI sector as a whole is rapidly expanding, and deployment in the customer service space is following suit. Here are some examples of how firms might incorporate AI into their customer service ecosystems.

#1. Chatbots for common customer service questions

Simple chatbots are possibly the most prevalent type of customer service AI, or at least the one that the typical customer is most likely to experience. When used correctly, chatbots serve as a buffer for agents rather than simply replacing human help. Chatbots can provide prefabricated solutions to frequent inquiries, or they can crawl existing sources such as manuals, internet, or even prior conversations.

If inquiries like these account for 50% of a company’s overall customer support request tickets, that represents significant time savings for its personnel. Chatbots can connect clients to available agents for unanswered queries, ensuring that those agents only receive the more complex or higher-value requests.

#2. Chatbots for customer service

Sometimes the best approach to assist people is to assist them in assisting themselves.

Chatbots can do more than just answer questions; they can also utilize artificial intelligence (AI) to recommend actions based on a client’s browsing patterns or popular recent requests from across the website, identifying or even predicting friction points before the user even tries to contact support. Chatbots can appear with appropriate sites to help visitors get to their anticipated destinations faster if clicks or in-site search queries for a particular product type or content cluster, for example. This is also an excellent technique for a company to recommend items or services to qualified leads.

#3. Ticket management for assistance

Natural language processing (NLP) and sentiment analysis are used in AI support ticket organization, which uses rules to automatically attach tags and labels to tickets and sort them to the relevant agent and support phase. Using artificial intelligence to automate ticketing has two significant advantages over manual organization: it reduces the amount of time agents spend on repetitive, low-impact jobs, and it allows businesses to scale their support as they grow. 

Because AI learns from itself, it may use analytics to improve its operations over time. As resolution processes evolve, AI ticketing may alter how it classifies and tags discussions, assigns tickets, and keeps agents up to date.

#4. Opinion gathering

AI can be used to sift through what people are saying about a firm using natural language processing to provide reports that can be used to improve customer service. From private user surveys to public reviews to social media posts, AI can execute sentiment analysis (or opinion mining) in a fraction of the time it would take a human to read through comments, evaluations, and updates one by one.

While this technique does not directly address consumers or remedy active concerns, it can be a very useful tool for discovering typical customer friction areas. Enterprises can fix problems by modifying workflows, introducing new self-service resources, or providing agents with the training or tools they need to handle them by using these studies to identify trends in service operations.

#5. Competitor analysis evaluation

What applies to you is likely to apply to your competitors—and vice versa. 

Opinion mining can also be used to examine publicly available competitor reviews or to sift through social media channels for mentions or relevant hashtags. The tone of Twitter mentions, frequent complaints in negative reviews, and common themes in positive reviews can all be determined using AI sentiment analysis. 

#6. Queries in several languages

The possibility to provide multilingual support for organizations with global consumer bases is tremendous, much like my cherished Christmas breakfast burrito. It may not be possible for every seller to have support agents who speak every major language in the world, but AI translation systems can help them.

These tools can detect an incoming language and automatically translate an equivalent message to an agent, and vice versa. They can even recognize the customer’s location and adjust the phrase to localized linguistic and cultural nuances when combined with neural machine translation (NLT) services. Some even provide speech translation services.

While no AI translator can now convert every language (most are only compatible with a few dozen), their capabilities are expanding. 

#7. Machine learning for personalizing the consumer experience

At its best, servicing customers also serves businesses—as the phrase goes, one hand washes the other. 

Machine learning can assist eCommerce sellers in providing better, more tailored shopping experiences to their customers, easing their purchasing journeys and creating an ongoing engagement with the vendor. Sellers can obtain insights from things like demographic data, previous purchases, interest in products they haven’t purchased, browsing behavior, and search queries by analyzing a customer’s profile holistically.

Sellers can send personalized recommendations, timely promotions, or targeted check-ins to customers by using machine learning to datasets that encompass a wide range of customer information and activity.

#8. Inventory management with machine learning

If you’ve ever tried to order an out-of-stock item or been informed that a product you had ordered would be back-ordered, you understand how inventory management connects to customer service operations. Effective inventory management can also prevent stock-related inquiries from reaching service agents by keeping things consistently in stock.

Machine learning can assist merchants in navigating the fine line between adequate and surplus inventory. AI-powered analytics of product inventories, logistics, and historical sales trends may provide dynamic forecasting in real-time. AI can even employ forecast logic to autonomously scale inventory to assure more reliable availability with less excess stock.

What Are The Benefits Of AI Customer Service To The Customer?

Here’s how the customer experience improves when an AI tool is used in the customer care process.

#1. Rapid assistance

AI allows you to set up automated responses to consumer requests, which means you can respond to them as soon as feasible. Trickier problems are routed to the correct support agent’s inbox, allowing them to provide solutions and support faster than ever before.

This speeds up problem-solving and enhances the entire customer experience.

#2. Consistent support is guaranteed.

Even if no agents are accessible at the time, automation techniques enable you to deliver constant support. With AI-powered customer service bots, your customers will be able to fix a problem at any time of day.

#3. Reducing human error

We all make mistakes, but AI-powered models are trained to be exact and accurate. They grow more accurate as they process more data. This indicates that the more you utilize it, the better the results.

Greater precision will keep you on top of changing customer support requirements. You will eventually produce a better experience for your customers.

What are the Benefits Of AI Customer Service For The Company?

Here are the benefits of AI customer service for your company.

#1. Identification of the lead

Automated customer care operations can assist you in identifying potential leads who may become customers. Once a contact is in your system, you can enroll them in marketing flows that will guide them through the customer journey.

For example, if you send someone a welcome email with a CTA, you’re definitely tracking whether or not they clicked. People who did not click could receive an automatic reminder a week later using automated marketing channels. This might assist you in increasing conversion rates and income.

#2. Gathering information

AI helps you to acquire vast amounts of data rapidly and easily. You may use this data to create practical steps to improve your product and customer service process.

You can, for example, process a large volume of client messages if you have automatic text analysis. When you notice a certain word or phrase again, it could indicate that there is a persistent problem with a particular feature of your product.

This could assist you in detecting trends and making product improvements that will alleviate the problems that customers are experiencing.

#3. Enhanced brand reputation

Having happy customers implies having brand ambassadors who will spread the word about your company.

If you have a high amount of customer communications and are manually processing them all, you may not be able to respond to them all. This will not be the case if the process is automated—you will be able to reach all of them.

Customers are happier when they receive prompt assistance, and happy customers are more likely to become brand evangelists.

The Most Effective AI Customer Service Chatbots

When selecting an AI provider for your customer service, there are numerous factors to consider, ranging from integration capabilities to data protection regulations. Here’s a list of the best AI customer service chatbots available.

#1. Ultimate

Ultimate is the world’s leading provider of customer support automation. Ultimate’s no-code platform and intuitive Dialogue Builder make it simple for CS teams to create advanced conversation flows and provide faster, more pleasant customer care in 109 languages. The Ultimate AI chatbot is language-independent and does not use a translation layer.  Ultimate’s patented language detection model is the most accurate on the market and is specifically built to comprehend short, informal customer care messages.

Ultimate’s AI chatbot resides inside your existing tech stack (much like your human agents) and seamlessly connects with top CRMs such as Zendesk, Salesforce, Freshworks, and others. Furthermore, Ultimate provides bespoke API connectors to integrate your chatbot with your backend systems and automate more complex procedures from start to finish. The Ultimate solution can automate repetitive operations and answer to client inquiries in real-time across all digital channels, including email tickets and social media chat platforms. Advanced statistics and multilingual reports enable you to monitor the operation of your bot.

#2. Answer Bot

It’s no surprise that Zendesk’s Answer Bot is created expressly to improve the customer experience as one of the key players in helpdesk software. It’s simple for Zendesk users to set up this out-of-the-box, no-code solution.

Answer Bot is available in 18 languages and works with email, chat, and messaging apps. This built-in AI chatbot is simple to manage for Zendesk professionals, but it may not fulfill the needs of customers with more complex business cases.

#3. Netomi

Netomi’s AI chatbot assists businesses in automatically responding to client inquiries in a conversational manner. Their NLU-powered technology learns from previous messages and can resolve situations via chat, email, voice, and social.

Netomi may be easily integrated into your existing tech stack thanks to out-of-the-box connections with popular helpdesk providers. Furthermore, their international capabilities (Netomi’s AI chatbot supports 100+ languages) allow businesses to serve clients all around the world.

#4. Freddy AI

Freshworks CRM platform created Freddy, an AI chatbot. Freshworks’ bot assists their customers in providing rapid, automated responses to typical enquiries in 47 languages. Freddy is compatible with various chat and messaging programs.

Freddy AI adapts and improves over time by learning from your knowledge base and FAQs. Freddy’s no-code decision tree bot builder is simple to use, although it is less versatile than other AI chatbots.

#5. Zowie

Zowie is a self-learning AI chatbot designed for ecommerce firms that uses your existing support data to automate repetitive client questions. The bot integrates with your existing technology stack and is extremely low-maintenance.

This AI chatbot assists digital retail companies in providing individualized customer care in 56 languages (through a translation layer) while also assisting businesses in increasing sales.

#6. Ada

Ada’s AI chatbot, designed to deliver proactive customer assistance, enables support teams to create personalized experiences at scale. Using a translation layer, the Ada bot reduces wait times and can service consumers in over 100 languages.

With their no-code, drag-and-drop bot builder, non-technical users can easily develop chat flows. This chatbot also integrates with the leading CRMs and third-party apps, as well as rich messaging capability such as emojis, photos, gifs, and videos.

Jasper.ai: What Is It?

Jasper is an artificial intelligence writer who, thanks to cutting-edge AI technology, can select content faster than any copywriter. Their technology automates different corporate processes and improves decision-making by utilizing cutting-edge machine-learning algorithms. The capabilities of Jasper.ai, which include predictive analytics, chatbots, and process automation, help businesses increase productivity, accelerate growth, and maintain a competitive advantage. Jasper.ai provides the AI-powered solutions that businesses require to survive in today’s rapidly changing market, whether it’s streamlining operations, improving customer service, or optimizing supply chain management.

Jasper.ai Advantages

  • Because it is so basic, almost anyone can use it.
  • You will receive 100% unique content that is free of plagiarism.
  • Prewritten templates for specific categories are available.
  • Jasper AI’s specialty is creating SEO-friendly content.
  • Jasper AI can be fed advertising campaigns, specialty blogs, educational content, or any other type of keyword.
  • Because of its appealing design and handy shortcut tools, Jasper AI is generally dependable.
  • Jasper AI can communicate in over 25 languages.

Will AI Replace Customer Service?

Yes, AI can replace some of the activities done by call center operators, but computers are unlikely to completely replace human agents.

How Can AI Be Used To Improve Customer Service?

AI can assist you in identifying and segmenting your clients based on their behavioral and psychological characteristics. You may obtain a deeper grasp of their needs and interests, and then generate customized message that is more likely to persuade and motivate them.

How Has AI Affected Customer Service?

AI has an impact on customer service by enabling support teams to automate easy resolutions, resolve problems more efficiently, and apply machine learning to acquire insights into customer difficulties.

What Are the Disadvantages of AI in Customer Service?

They can handle simple queries but may fail to handle sophisticated requests. Most clients expect immediate solutions and will be unsatisfied if they do not receive them.

In Conclusion,

Using AI for customer support automates many operations, saving you a significant amount of time and money. You’ll become more efficient and gain more insightful information from what your consumers say.

Customers are happy when your customer support methods are more efficient and high-quality. They become brand champions and help your company’s reputation—good testimonials bring in more customers and increase income.

  1. WHAT ARE CHATBOTS: Uses, Examples & Chatbot
  2. AI Marketing: Top 30+ Artificial Intelligence Marketing Tools
  3. CHATBOX: Meaning, Live & Free Apps to Use
  4. Financial Tips: How To Save Time In Your Business

References

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You May Also Like