Remember in grade school when your teachers stressed the importance of learning long division by hand?
“You won’t always have a calculator in your pocket,” they’d say.
The joke’s on them.
Back in the ’90s, when I was in grade school, my teachers had no idea about the advancements in tech that were headed our way. Not only do I now always have a calculator in my back pocket, but I have a full-blown computer, no bigger than my hand, no more than 10 inches away from me at almost all times. (Yeah, I know, that’s probably a problem.)
The point is technology is moving faster than ever. And AI is just the latest colossal advancement sending shockwaves through the business terrain. Global AI, for instance, is predicted to grow at a CAGR of 18.45% from this year to 2030. And according to IBM, 50% of companies say they’re already willing to add AI into their consumer interactions. What’s more, 70% of CEOs are highly interested in an AI-enhanced CX.
So where do you start?
How to Use AI for Customer Service?
Start with a plan.
Before you add AI to your customer service strategy, figure out what areas you want the AI to focus on. Would chatbots be helpful? Or would an automated ticketing system be your priority? As you plan, you should also think through your goals. Are you looking to improve your customer satisfaction? Reduce costs? Increase agent efficiency and performance? Whatever it is, document it.
Once you have a plan in place, think through the prompts that’ll let AI engage with your customers in the most effective, efficient way. This means you might need conversational scripts providing clear instructions and IDing relevant info that’ll solve your customer issues. Or, potentially, you’ll need to create and add inquiry variants and answers tailored to your specific customer demographic. Again, document it.
And finally, you’ll want to have a documented plan (are you sensing a theme here?) to review the effectiveness of your AI systems. Look at your metrics, like response times, accuracy rates, and customer satisfaction rates, to find potential areas for improvement. Based on this info, you can make adjustments, fine-tune your prompts and add more sophisticated AI solutions that better serve your customers.
Automate Your Work
Capacity’s enterprise AI chatbot can help:
- Answer FAQs anytime, anywhere
- Find relevant documents within seconds
- Give surveys and collect feedback
Know the potential pitfalls of AI
While AI can streamline operations, simplify your CX and AX, and boost customer satisfaction when it’s used right, there are also a few pitfalls you’ll want to avoid. For instance, AI chatbots may not always understand the nuances of human language and could offer up unhelpful, frustrating, or even biased responses.
And while having a strong adoption is helpful, leaning too heavily on AI could lead to a lack of personalized connection, empathy, or the human touch, which could hurt your customer loyalty. As such, it’s super important to carefully consider exactly how you’ll add AI into your customer service strategy in a balanced and thoughtful way.
Now that you have a plan, let’s look at 13 examples of AI in customer service to boost loyalty and ease of service.
13 Examples of AI in Customer Service
1. Chatbots:
AI chatbots can interact with your customers in real-time, giving them quick responses and resolving basic inquiries without human intervention.
2. Virtual Assistants:
Virtual assistants like Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant use conversational AI to understand and respond to customer questions, helping with tasks like finding information or setting reminders.
3. Automated Phone Systems
With natural language processing, an automated phone system can help customers find the right answer and quickly route their calls to the right department.
4. Natural Language Processing
NLP lets your AI systems understand and interpret human language. And that then improves the accuracy of customer interactions and responses, making your customers giddy in their interactions with your brand.
5. Sentiment Analysis
You can use AI to analyze your customer feedback, reviews, and social media posts to determine sentiment. That helps you in gauging your customer satisfaction and find areas for improvement.
6. Predictive Analytics
AI algorithms are crazy smart. They can analyze huge amounts of your customer data to predict future behavior and preferences. And then, you can offer personalized recommendations and totally tailored experiences.
7. Email Automation
This one’s super cool and on the top of my mind because we just added this feature at Capacity. AI can help you write emails! For instance, our new release uses generative AI to write a response, make a response longer, improve a reply, summarize an issue, or list action items.
8. Voice Recognition
AI-powered voice recognition technology lets your customers have a hands-free service experience. This might look like voice-activated commands or voice-controlled devices.
9. Image Recognition
AI can recognize images uploaded by customers, helping you to quickly ID products, troubleshoot issues, or offer up visual assistance.
10. FAQ Automation
AI systems can analyze your frequently asked questions and automatically respond. This lets your customers solve their problems faster without having to talk to a human or, worse, sit on hold and wait to speak to a human.
11. Personalized Recommendations
AI algorithms analyze customer preferences and behavior to deliver tailored product or content recommendations, enhancing the customer experience.
12. Virtual Reality
AI-powered VR experiences can provide virtual product demonstrations or immersive customer support, giving customers a more interactive and engaging experience.
13. Social Media Monitoring
AI tools can monitor social media platforms for mentions, hashtags, and customer feedback, letting you respond promptly and manage your online reputation effectively.
6 (More) Examples of AI for the Agent Experience
1. Automated Ticket Assignment
AI can look at your incoming support tickets and assign them to the most suitable agents based on skillset, workload, or priority level.
2. Knowledge Base Enhancement
AI can help your agents access relevant information fast by suggesting relevant knowledge base articles or providing real-time insights during customer interactions.
3. Automated Workflow
AI-powered systems can automate repetitive tasks for agents. This might be data entry, scheduling appointments, or updating customer records, which lets them focus on more complex customer issues.
4. Sentiment Analysis for Agent Guidance
AI can analyze customer sentiment in real-time during conversations, giving your agents suggestions or prompts to handle the interaction more effectively.
5. Coaching and Training
AI tools can give your agents personalized coaching and training, offering feedback, recommending best practices, and assisting with on-the-job learning in the moment so bad behaviors don’t turn into bad habits.
6. Performance Analytics
AI algorithms can look at your agent performance metrics, like response times and customer satisfaction ratings. This kind of workforce optimization can help managers find areas for improvement and optimize performance in minutes.
Remember, AI in customer service aims to enhance the customer experience and improve the efficiency of customer support processes. You can use these examples of AI in customer service to benefit both your customers and your agents for a better overall experience.
Want to add AI to your customer service strategy? Try Capacity for free!
