The advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming how we live, work, and interact with businesses. It makes our home smarter and gives personalized recommendations by touching every aspect of the modern life – including companies handling customer support and service interactions.
What is AI in Customer Service?
AI in customer service is an excellent method of responding instantly with relevant answers to queries. Businesses offer a personalized experience to customers seeking answers to their queries by using natural language processing (NLP), machine Learning (ML), and data analytics. They provide:
- Fast engagement with accurate answers to queries
- Providing virtual assistance at any hour
- Spotting trends in customer feedback
- Unifying data and covering service touchpoints to provide complete insights
As per HubSpot, customer satisfaction (CSAT) is still the most important key performance indicator (KPI), and three out of four leaders in the customer service segment agree.
Here, an AI-driven system plays a crucial role by being a:
- Chatbot
- Voice assistant
- Text analyzer
- Sentiment analyst
- Agent assistant
- Operation management, etc
Or a mix-and-match of all these categories to cover all the crucial fields of customer service. This system offers exclusive benefits to your business operations related to customer service.
Benefits of AI in Customer Service
AI brings powerful advantages to customer service by redefining how businesses support customers and improving operational outcomes.
Higher Productivity
AI automation can handle routine tasks like answering common queries, updating account information, and processing simple requests. This level of automation frees agents to resolve complex customer issues that need human intervention.
So, while AI covers repetitive work, your team can solve problems that require human judgment and empathy.
Better Efficiency
Customer service teams using AI respond faster to queries. Instead of waiting days for email responses or hours on hold during live chat, AI analyzes the queries and provides a quick solution.
It works 24/7 to process multiple requests simultaneously. Such systems can streamline workflows automatically by categorizing and routing issues to the right department for faster resolution.
Personalized Service Interaction
AI systems analyze customer history, past purchases, and preferences to understand the queries. Its quick read on customers’ data provides personalized support to every incoming query.
In this way, businesses make customers feel valued and understood. This level of personalization generally takes more time when done manually. AI reads patterns and adjusts communication styles to match customer preferences.
Reduced Operational Costs
AI automation in customer service reduces operational costs considerably. A human customer support agent can handle, let’s say, a hundred queries in a day. It is exhausting and prone to mistakes.
On the other hand, AI customer service systems can handle thousands of calls within a significantly smaller turnaround time at a fraction of the cost. This efficiency reduces operational costs and increases ROI. Businesses can even scale customer support operations without proportionally increasing staff costs.
Higher Customer Satisfaction
AI customer services resolve queries with fast and accurate responses. It leads to happier customers, resulting in better conversions and customer loyalty. This personal satisfaction eliminates the frustrations of customers waiting for a response.
The best part is that AI systems can maintain the same quality of responses and resolutions across all interaction channels. This automation reinforces trust through elevated customer satisfaction.
Handling High Support Demand
Online business portals may face sudden spikes in queries. Human agents reach their limits when handling multiple queries in a day. These overwhelming situations may affect the brand image of businesses.
Unlike human teams, an AI customer support system can scale itself to meet a high volume of queries. This smart system can adjust according to the situation and does not keep a customer waiting for a quality response.
These benefits will become much clearer if we scout the modern applications of AI in customer service.
5 Applications of AI in Customer Service
Modern customer service relies on several AI technologies that work together for a smooth experience. Here are the five key application areas of AI in customer service.
- AI Chatbots
AI chatbots serve as digital assistants on websites and applications for businesses. They are ready to help customers instantly with accurate information and resolutions. They understand and analyze questions with their NLP capabilities and provide relevant answers without human intervention.
One tool you can use to create an AI chatbot is Jotform AI Agents, with over 7000 agent and chatbot templates you can choose from and customize. For example, you can use the customer support AI agent to automate support flows on your website. You can hire staff, collect feedback, provide customer support and streamline any human interaction easily. These agents can even interact with external APIs.
- AI Voice Assistants
Voice-powered AI handles phone support by understanding spoken questions and providing voiced answers. These smart AI systems can recognize natural speech patterns even with different accents and speaking styles.
For example, Jotform’s AI phone answering system can automate responses, redirect callers to the right point of contact, and even capture insights from calls. You can build and train your AI voice agent with files or a business knowledge base, and set tone, voice, and query escalation rules complying with your brand image.
- AI-powered Sentiment Analysis
You can train an AI customer support system to read between the lines. It can detect customer emotions and sentiments during communications by analyzing word choices, tones, and context. The best part is that an AI system can perform the same in chats, reviews, emails, and voice calls.
- AI-driven Intelligent Query Routing
These AI tools can analyze the content of messages and calls to understand what customers need. Based on the analysis, they can route the calls, emails, or messages to a qualified agent or a department.
This application reduces turnaround time significantly and improves first-contact problem-solving quality.
- AI-driven Automated Workflows
Behind the scenes, AI streamlines support operations by automating manual processes. This system automatically categorizes incoming tickets and prioritizes urgent issues. It schedules follow-ups and triggers appropriate actions based on analyzed customer needs.
Now, the real question is what to consider when you want to implement AI in customer service. Here are the factors to ponder upon.
Factors to Consider When Implementing AI in Customer Service
Make a smart decision by determining these factors to identify the right AI service for your business’s customer service.
Purpose
Identify the purpose of an AI in your customer service segment. Why do you need an AI system?
- Acquire and analyze customer feedback
- Answer customer queries
- Workflow management, etc
Degree of Customization
Every business has unique needs and customers. Only a highly customizable AI system can deliver the expected outcomes. Find out which AI services can be trained with data to behave, interact, and match your brand’s attributes.
Trust and Reliability
Accuracy and consistency are the two prime factors to build trust and reliability among customers. Verify the outcomes of an AI solution and make sure it complies with industry regulations like CCPA and GDPR for data protection.
Budget
Decide your budget and choose an AI service accordingly. Top brands like Jotform can deliver out-of-the-box solutions without involving large IT development services.
The Future of Customer Service is Here: Are You Ready?
AI in customer service adds a competitive advantage to your business. Automated routine tasks, responding to daily queries, and scaling support operations are a few of its benefits. An AI system’s proactive support to identify and address potential issues drives dramatic improvements in operational efficiency and customer satisfaction.
So, it’s time to integrate the power of AI in customer service and take a step ahead towards the future. Make this transformation hassle-free with Jotform AI Agents to design a customizable AI solution. From AI chatbots to a sophisticated AI phone system – be ready to the meet the evolving customer expectations.
Featured Image by Tim van der Kuip on Unsplash
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