AI is revolutionizing many industries, streamlining processes and creating new opportunities. However, many people worry that, rather than creating real advances, AI will serve to simply replace their customer service staff. They fear this will lead to a shortage of jobs at that level. Some employers may even believe that AI can serve as an efficient replacement for customer service staff.
In reality, however, AI isn’t designed to replace existing staff–especially in an era when those staff members may face more challenges and questions than ever before. Rather, AI works in conjunction with your existing customer service team, making them more efficient as they answer customer queries, connect with customers, and provide a higher level of service.
How AI Can Help Your Company Provide Better Customer Service
Many AI tools can help advance the service you can offer your customers.
1. Create More Chances to Connect
With AI, you have more opportunities to connect with customers and offer support. Customers might not be willing to call in given the extensive wait to talk to a live representative. However, they might be more prepared to work with your chatbot to find a solution to their problems. As a result, customers will feel, overall, more satisfied with the service they have received from your business. That means that they will often have a higher opinion of your business in general.
2. Free Up Staff Members To Deal With More Complex Queries
When you use AI to address simple customer queries, you free up your customer service team to deal with the more complex issues that only they can handle. Many customers may have simple questions that the AI can easily take care of: scheduling or rescheduling an appointment or giving them general FAQ answers. When customers need more personalized information, from an estimate of how long it might take to complete a construction project to information about the classes they may need for a specific major in college, there are team members available to take care of those needs.
3. Gather More Data About Customers
Not only can AI help answer common customer questions, it can provide more information about your customers and their needs. AI can quickly track what questions customers are most likely to ask and even when they are most likely to need assistance. For example, is there a specific page on your home builder website that is more likely to trigger customers to ask questions? Do students browsing the campus website often have questions about a specific major or class? AI technology can keep track of those concerns, allowing you to fix any problems with the customer experience.
4. Get Customers Their Answers More Quickly
AI is a fast, easy way for customers with simple concerns or queries to get their answers quickly. Most importantly, they don’t have to wait for a customer service representative. Furthermore, it frees up customer service reps to deal with those more complex queries. As a result, those customers who do have issues that need the extra human touch won’t have to wait as long for service.
5. Fill in Gaps in Your Customer Service Team
The labor shortage remains a significant challenge for companies across industries. Around half of workers note that their companies are understaffed. If you’re struggling to keep your customer service team working at capacity, AI can help fill in some of the gaps in customer service. AI can make it easier for your existing staff to deliver the high level of service your customers expect.
6. Offer 24/7 Customer Service
Now, more than ever, customers want to be able to connect with your business at a time that’s convenient for them. Unfortunately, you may not always have a team on hand to tackle every customer query. With AI, however, you can empower customers to take on self-service tasks or provide them with support at all hours. That means they can connect with you when it’s convenient for them. If they do have a challenge the AI cannot answer, you can get back to them during business hours.
7. Improve Accessibility
Through AI, you can offer better customer service to customers with a variety of challenges, from an international student who doesn’t speak the language to someone who struggles to navigate a traditional website. AI tools are designed to simplify and streamline those interactions, including offering translation services and support.
How To Implement a Customer Service Strategy That Uses AI
There are several key things to keep in mind when implementing a strategy that uses both AI and human customer service representatives to deliver the high standard you expect for your customers.
1. Know Your Options
Several tools and options allow you to utilize AI effectively for your customer service interactions.
- Customer service chatbots: AI customer service reps that can answer basic questions. Chatbots can quickly escalate customer service queries that they cannot handle to human representatives.
- Self-service chatbots: Self-service chatbots allow customers to take care of basic things, like scheduling or returns, themselves. Customers can also use these self-service chatbots to get more information: for example, a look at how much it might cost to complete a renovation.
- Data gathering: AI can gather data in several essential ways, from mining information about competitors or public opinion of your brand to learning more about the questions and concerns customers are most likely to bring to your brand.
- Personalization: Through the use of AI, you can get a much better idea of what different segments of your target audience are looking for and deliver an experience tailored to their needs. For example, you might choose to create a different student experience based on their major, or to design a different experience based on where students are in their educational journeys.
- Support ticket ranking and organization: When the chatbot or AI system cannot handle customer queries, use your ranking and organization system to sort them in order of importance, so you can get to customers who need immediate assistance–like those who may have a serious issue to take care of in their homes–before customers who likely just need a call back within the next few days.
- Customer routing: Make sure that customers get to the right place when they have an issue or challenge. AI can route customers directly to the representative they need to speak to or give them more information about self-service options.
Working with a provider who can help you fully understand the options available to you can make it much easier for you to select the tools that are most likely to prove beneficial to your specific organization.
2. Consider Your Customers
Carefully consider your target audience. How are they most likely to be interacting with your brand? Get to know their preferences, from the questions they’re most likely to ask to the issues they’re most likely to need help with. Then, make sure you’re selecting tools and solutions that fit their unique needs. Consider:
- How can AI make your customers’ lives easier?
- What customer service processes need a human touch, rather than AI?
- Are there specific tools that will improve business processes?
Ideally, you want your AI tools to add to the customer service experience, making it easier and more beneficial for customers to connect with your company.
3. Make Sure You Have Adequate Staffing and Support
While AI offers many critical benefits, it’s designed to work in partnership with your customer support staff. Around 86% of consumers note that they prefer humans to chatbots, in part because of the human ability to apply judgment and nuance to a situation. While AI can help streamline customer interactions, it shouldn’t replace your customer service team. Sure, it can fill in some gaps when you’re short-staffed, but it can’t take the place of a human customer service representative who can show empathy and genuinely connect with customers.
As you redesign your customer service solutions to incorporate artificial intelligence, make sure you’re adequately staffing your organization. Have enough customer support staff on hand to handle customer queries, whether that means employees who are prepared to deal with escalations that the AI can’t complete or employees who can work with customers who aren’t interested in working with AI directly.
4. Provide Comprehensive Employee Training
Not only does your customer service team need to know how to handle customer interactions, they need to know how the AI system works and what it’s offering customers. When you shift between AI and employee, it should be a seamless experience. Employees shouldn’t need to ask the same questions that were just asked by the AI, nor should they go back over things the customer has already tried through the AI system when they’re managing troubleshooting. Instead, make sure employees know how to use those tools from their side so that they can provide a higher standard of service.
AI Continues To Revolutionize Customer Service
AI has the potential to revolutionize customer service–but not on its own. By utilizing AI tools alongside well-trained customer service representatives, you can provide a better customer experience and enhance overall appreciation for your brand.
Learn more about improving the customer experience for your business by contacting the team at AtlasRTX.
