Pop Quiz: How much can your customer service experience grow revenues?
Answer: Between 4-8%.
That’s a massive swing into profit from a long history as a cost center. But your customers aren’t…super pumped…to sit on the phone with your customer service team during their day. Personally, I’d do just about anything to avoid having to call customer service (no offense). It has absolutely nothing to do with the lovely people on the other end of the line. But I’d much rather find the answer on my own, in my own time, without talking to another human.
Okay, so I’m an introvert. But I’m not alone. Gartner estimates that by 2030, customer-owned bots will automatically raise a billion service tickets. And to handle this influx in demand, companies are turning to automation. Specifically, they’re looking to chatbots. An AI chatbot can help your customers and agents get quick and accurate answers to most of their questions.
Chatbots aren’t just a cool piece of tech. They can also be super handy when it comes to customer experience, especially in support scenarios. Here are eleven support chatbot use cases to inspire you and your team:
6 Chatbot use cases to improve your customer experience
1. 24/7 customer service
According to HubSpot research, 90% of customers say an “immediate” response is essential when they have a customer service question. And 60% of those customers define “immediate” as 10 minutes or less. But what happens when your customer needs an immediate response at 2 a.m.?
Enter your chatbot.
Using a chatbot, you can have 24/7 support without fully staffing your center round-the-clock. The chatbot can answer common questions, direct customers to the right resources, and even provide product recommendations.
2. Answering FAQs
Another of our chatbot use cases lets automation handle answering frequently asked questions. FAQs are a customer service rep’s bread and butter. Think of all the time your agents spend answering these questions – and how much more efficient they could be if an automated chatbot handled this task.
Plus, a chatbot can answer FAQs faster and more accurately than an agent ever could. They can do this better than people because they don’t get tired and can remember tons of information. And, of course, chatbots are always available to help so your customers get immediate answers to their questions.
3. Providing personalized recommendations
My parents go to a little bed and breakfast in Michigan for their anniversary every year. They love it there! The host always remembers to make the eggs over medium and serve them with sourdough toast (but no jam) and potatoes for breakfast. She always has an extra blanket for my mom waiting in the room. And last time, she had a list of recommended antique shops ready for my parents when they arrived.
That’s insanely personalized service.
Now, how cool would it be if your company could do the same thing en masse? How would your customers feel about having a mom-and-pop-shop level of service? This is where you enlist automation to scale the personalization. Your chatbot can use past purchase data, search history, and demographics to serve up super specific, personalized recommendations for your customers. And then, using natural language processing, your bot can ID keywords and understand your customers’ needs and preferences from a conversation.
Automate Your Work
Capacity’s enterprise AI chatbot can help:
- Answer FAQs anytime, anywhere
- Find relevant documents within seconds
- Give surveys and collect feedback
4. Helping with product or service selection
Your chatbot can help customers figure out precisely what product or service is right for them. You could configure your bot to ask your customers questions about their needs and preferences to help narrow their product options. For instance, a chatbot for a clothing retailer could ask about sizing, preferred style, or occasion. And then your chatbot can recommend specific products that meet those needs.
If your customer is deciding between two or more products, your bot could serve up a comparison of the features and benefits of each to help your customer make an informed decision. And as questions come up, your chatbot can answer them in real time, helping your customer feel more confident in their purchase decision.
5. Handling billing & payments
Another of the most practical support chatbot use cases is automating customer billing and payments. By automating these processes, your chatbot can save agents tons of time (and resources) and give your customers a better experience. Often, customers have similar questions and issues. Rather than having them wait on hold for an agent to assist them, a chatbot can quickly and efficiently provide the information they need. Plus, chatbots can reduce the risk of errors.
Here are a few specific chatbot use cases for billing and payments:
- Providing account balance info
- Answering common billing questions (like how to update payment info, set up autopay, or dispute a charge).
- Assisting with payment processing
- Sending payment reminders
6. Helping with account setup and management
A chatbot provides an effortless way for customers to set up and manage their accounts. Have questions about entering payment information, creating an auto-payment system, or checking your balance? No worries – the chatbot is always available 24/7 so you can get swift answers without waiting in line for a human agent. Plus, it offers extra features like disputing charges and sending out payment reminders that are convenient and time-saving.
5 Chatbot use cases for a better agent experience
1. Automated ticket routing & assignments
Using NLP and machine learning, chatbots can ID the nature of incoming tickets and route them to the most appropriate agent. What’s more, instead of randomly assigning tickets to agents, your chatbot can grab agent data to automate assignments. For instance, your bot can look at agent availability, workload, and past performance to ensure they’re the best agent to handle the customer issue.
2. Proactively serving up relevant customer information
Chatbots can help customer service agents by providing important information about customers quickly. The chatbot looks at things like past purchase data, search history, and customer demographics to give the agent the best information for helping the customer. And then, of course, because it’s using NLP, your bot can understand what customers are saying and give responses tailored to their needs.
3. Offering suggested responses to common inquiries
Another practical chatbot use case is offering suggested responses to common inquiries. Using AI and machine learning, a chatbot can analyze and learn from previous interactions, providing personalized answers to customers based on their unique needs and preferences. Sure, it saves the customer time and gives them a better experience. But it also helps your agents since it can handle repetitive inquiries and free up the agent’s time for more complex issues.
4. Simplified onboarding & ongoing training
One of the often-overlooked chatbot use cases is to help with onboarding and ongoing training for your agents. Agents require ongoing training and support to handle the (huge) range of customer queries they receive. This is where you can add your chatbot for extra support.
Chatbots can offer new agents a personalized onboarding experience, providing easy access to required training resources, including videos, manuals, and best practices. Chatbots can help new agents learn the ropes faster and more efficiently by providing on-the-job training. This approach can improve time to competency and reduce your training time for new agents.
And then, for rookies and veterans alike, your chatbot can help with ongoing training by providing performance metrics, personalized feedback, and coaching tips based on customer interactions. Chatbots can act like an always-on virtual coach for agents, too. If an agent has a question, whether it’s about product info or your policies and procedures, they can ask the chatbot rather than an overstretched manager.
5. Reducing workload with self-service options
By giving customers resources to answer common questions on their own, like through a knowledge base or FAQ page, your chatbot can deflect simple inquiries that would otherwise clog up agents’ queues. Obviously, this frees up your agents’ time, but it also helps reduce your average handle time. A few best practices for adding chatbots to your support strategy
At the end of the day, a chatbot isn’t just a tool. It’s essential to creating an effortless and enjoyable customer (and agent) experience. By using automated chatbots for customer service, you can ensure that your customers get their questions answered quickly and accurately while reducing your team’s workload and freeing up resources.
Ready to get started? Try Capacity for free and build your own AI-powered chatbot and knowledge base!
