AI in Customer Service: Boost Efficiency & Reduce Costs

According to the latest research by IBM, over 34% of leading companies worldwide currently use AI (artificial intelligence) in some way throughout their operations. Another 42% are actively exploring integrating such technology within the near future.

Of the many business goals, from improving lead generation to uncovering new insights with data analytics, AI customer service is a strong reason companies are seeking these integrations. The simple truth is that the better your customers interact with your online brand, the more they will return in the future and suggest your business to others.

So, how do you make the most out of blending your human assets with modern customer service AI?

How Does AI Help in Customer Service?

 

Learning AI systems may be a good resource for research, but in customer service, they help automate many of the everyday tasks a target client wishes to complete. Instead of wasting precious human assets on mundane or repetitive situations like booking appointments at a dental clinic or upselling products based on demographics, the AI steps in and completes those tasks for you.

When appropriately used through active monitoring and improvements, you experience a wealth of benefits from AI for customer service that include:

• Data Volume Handling: AI doesn’t need a restroom break to do its work. It can quickly scour data silos and lakes to uncover new insights that we would never have guessed on our own. This could be anything from when customers shop at your brand the most to the leading questions you’ll receive in a given time period.
• Minimize Handling Time: You want your customers to receive support as quickly and efficiently as possible. With AI in customer service, you are actively reducing wait times because chatbots and customer service agents built-in AI immediately respond to a wide range of topics.
• Personalization: A quality customer service AI will personalize all interactions. This may include LLM (large language modeling) that makes the system more humanistic as it learns about your brand in relation to customer interactions. That boosts sales, support, and marketing through hyper-personalized offers.
• Saves Money: While you’re always going to want some human assets to complete customer service at the higher levels, those common introductory questions or concerns can be completed at a fraction of the price. AI and customer service save you money in the long run by eliminating the need for such a large sales team.
• Live Tracking: Your business needs insights from historical data and real-time transactions. With AI on your side, you can actively monitor all conversations to adapt and grow alongside the needs of your customers or target audience.

 

The list of benefits of AI chatbot customer service can go on and on. It is all about finding new and powerful ways to streamline all interactions your customers have with your brand so you can focus on cultivating long term relationships and more product offerings which lead to higher revenue numbers.

The Best Practices of AI Customer Service

 

As you begin to integrate robust AI chatbot customer service solutions, you want to ensure you are designing and training your chatbot well from the beginning. This is no easy task if you’ve never built a chatbot before.

Luckily, there are some essential best practices to ensure the AI chatbot for customer service you integrate is well prepared for whatever your customers may require. Those include:

• Always try to understand the unique needs of your customers and goals of your chatbot before you start. That will define your pathway forward.
• Choose the best-fit AI customer service bot for your goals. One that integrates with the platform you use the most and can be trained by your team.
• Stick to a chatbot that personalizes where you need it. It should gather and analyze historical and demographic customer data to better fit their individualized needs.
• The “human factor” of your AI cannot be underrated. It should look and feel like a natural person is on the other end of the bot.
• As you continue to develop your conversational AI for customer service, be sure it allows for updates, improvements, and feedback over time. That should include real-time monitoring.
• The entire chatbot should be scalable as your business grows and adapts to seasonal expectations.
• Finally, there should be strong security measures in place so you don’t experience unnecessary downtime for your business.

 

With these core strategies in place, you should be able to get a strong ROI for your AI customer service chatbot. All that is left now is figuring out how to use the technology to its fullest potential.

How to Use AI in Customer Service

 

The end use of your AI-powered customer service chatbot will largely depend on your unique framework and needs. What is appropriate for a dental office in LA will not be the same for an ecommerce brand in Australia.

Here are some of the more common use cases of AI as it relates to current customer service needs.

#1 AI-Supported Human Customer Service

Instead of entirely relying on a chatbot, you integrate the AI technology with your current human support team. The chatbot can then direct inquiries to the correct location, acting as a “traffic guard” to ensure all your human team members are efficiently utilized.

#2 AI-Organized Email Inquiries

Email systems are perfect for including AI customer service solutions. Everything is already digitized and can be quickly segmented into different demographics or needs based on tags and scans. This helps you filter those requests, leads, and inquiries to either auto-responses or human agents.

#3 AI-Enhanced Product Support

Not all customers will understand the products and services you offer. A specific suite in one hotel may seem perfect at one time of year and completely unreasonable at another. AI can triage these inquiries based on the pre-built templates and datasets you provide. Instead of your agents having to repeat the same script, the AI can then customize responses so you cultivate the lead and continue the strong relationship.

#4 24/7 Proactive Service

Any customer service AI should be designable to proactively make suggestions to different customers based on their needs. For example, if a blockchain supported NFT marketplace has an inquiry about the latest release, it should be able to suggest something from the current offerings prior to launch day – all with 24/7/365 service and multilingual support.

#5 3 Tips for Successfully Implementing AI in Customer Service

Before you jump into an AI for customer service chatbot, be sure to consider the more common concerns businesses have with implementation. These include:

• Listen to Customer Concerns: The customers will happily tell you what they want. You want the technology to solve the pain points of your target audience, not just offer an essential service.
• Define How it Helps: Using AI in customer service means improving both your customer needs and your business operations. It should offer a balance of both levels so you get the highest ROI and future proof of your operations.
• Understand the Insights: Finally, track everything. The different metrics you rely upon should help you better meet your goals and understand what kinds of insights you’ll need for the future.

These may seem like simple tips for AI and customer service, but when carefully considered, offer your business solid solutions for integrating such technology into your everyday activities.

How to Get Started with AI in Customer Service

There are many solutions available online for AI chatbot customer service. One of the best on the market is GPTBots.ai. This is a comprehensive platform with a no-code builder that allows you to create everything from knowledge based chatbots to product recommendations that upsell complimentary items customers love to purchase.

With multiple-tiered plans (including a free level), you get quick implementation through comprehensive documentation support so you can train, build, and monitor your AI chatbot for customer service. That includes controllable LLMs (large language models) that better adapt to your customer and business needs.

Get started today by signing up for GPTBots.ai and experience the difference a rich AI model can bring to your customer service team.

Conclusion

AI customer service may seem like a leap into the world of science fiction, but the reality is that technology is here to stay. Everyone from leading global hotel chains to small mom-and-pop retail establishments rely on these systems to make the customer experience so much more rewarding.

As long as you’re willing to do a little training and monitoring, you can quickly upscale and improve your business operations with only a minor investment.