AI Customer Service: Improve your customer experience
Have you ever wondered about the impact people’s skill in simplifying life has had on progress? They create different tools designing ways to streamline their work due to their exceptional minds. One prime example of a development that helps people to be more efficient and to cope better with complex requirements is the advent of artificial intelligence (AI). In this article, I will relate to how AI for Customer Service became a digital personal assistant that will lead your customer experiences to another level.
What is AI in Customer Service?
Ai in Customer Service is the field of computer science that responds to creating artificial intelligence tools performing human tasks like speech recognition, visual and audio perception, translation, decision – making.
These digital tools are usually used to create a more pleasing user experience, and a good example of an AI tool companies use ChatBot. Chatbots are designed to be easy to use and can be integrated into various platforms, including websites, messaging apps, and social media platforms. They utilize natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning (ML) to understand customer questions and provide appropriate responses.
How can businesses use AI for customer service?
Which businesses can implement AI in Customer Service? My answer is every business that can afford it. Taking care of your customer journey on the website can upgrade customer experience and ensure buyer satisfaction. As a result, multiple AI platforms exist to evolve the customer service experience that offers different types of AI tools like Zendesk, Salesforce, and Freshdesk.
Businesses can use these providers to replace employees’ power on different tasks. As a result, AI-powered systems are being used to provide personalized experiences to customers. These methods analyze customer data to understand their preferences, acquisition history, and behavior. Based on this analysis, AI delivers personalized recommendations and offers to clients, making their experience more engaging and satisfying.
Benefits of AI in customer service
Do you still need to figure out if AI in customer service is a good idea? In this case, let’s take a look at the strong points your company can benefit from :
- Enhanced Speed of Service – AI mechanisms like ChatBots or virtual assistants can deliver fast and accurate answers to customer questions at any time. As a result, these tools allow businesses to provide prompt customer service and improve customer satisfaction.
- Worthwhile – If companies have AI tools on their side, they reduce the need for human customer service representatives, lowering labor costs for businesses. Additionally, AI can handle routine tasks and queries, freeing up employees to concentrate on more complex tasks.
- Data Collection – AI tools collect important data based on customer behavior. With the help of the database, companies can improve the product or service provided and their customer service process to become more user-friendly.
- Multilingual support – AI instruments can provide the information for the customer’s preferred language selected at the registration stage in his journey. This feature of an AI product can help you attract new customers or keep the old ones when companies provide products on the international marketplace.
- Downing human errors – Every human can make mistakes at work because of a bad day or mood, but digital tools are immune. Because of ML, a subfield of AI, allows computer systems to learn from data and improve their performance on a given task. As a result, this means that the more you use AI, the better solution customers get.
Types of AI-powered customer service
There are a lot of AI tools that businesses can benefit from, but these are the most often met:
ChatBots
This digital tool represents a computer program that uses AI and NLP to reproduce a human conversation in a chatbox for customer support in his journey. According to Statista, a statistic from 2023 tells us that customer services and satisfaction are key areas where businesses greatly benefit from AI. Consequently, Chatbots have become popular tools for businesses seeking to streamline their customer service operations.
Virtual Assistants
This digital assistant is also a computer program made by AI and NLP; likewise, are ChatBots made, but his existence has different duties to perform. AI-powered virtual assistants can manage various assignments, such as replying to questions, delivering information, scheduling meetings, and making reservations like JARVIS made for Tony Stark in Iron Man. They can be programmed to understand and respond to natural language commands, allowing users to interact with them conversationally.
Sentiment Analysis
Known as opinion mining, it represents a subfield of NLP and a branch of AI capable of understanding feelings or opinions that are the pillars of text concepts. An example can be Customer Feedback Analysis which is AI-empowered and can sound like that and be classified as “Positive,” “Negative,” or “Neutral” :
- I really like video games. -> Positive
- I don’t like video games. -> Negative
- I don’t know if I like video games. -> Neutral
AI Call Centers
This digital call center uses artificial intelligence like natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning to analyze and understand customer needs to provide personalized replies or suggestions. By replacing traditional call centers, AI reduces the waiting time for a free agent to provide fast and efficient responses.
Interactive Voice Response System
Artificial intelligence call centers and IVR systems are linked technologies created for more efficient and effective customer service experiences. These systems represent automated voice responses that users usually wait to receive, used to route calls to the appropriate department or real human agent.
Potential drawbacks
Even if AI tools are a good idea for many businesses with multiple benefits, the quote that my chemistry teacher told me: “In life, where is a huge plus, there is also a huge minus,” also applies to Artificial Intelligence in customer service.
If we already understand that AI can replace the human force in reducing its errors, the lack of human touch persists when digitalization makes a presence. Different types of customers with different demands exist, and people may prefer to get in touch with a real human regarding customer service. Furthermore, like any technology or item crafted, AI systems can experience errors or bugs, leading to delays or downtime in the customer service process.
Implementing AI in intersection with real human employees is the best way to mitigate these risks. In case of delays in digital tools used for customer service, getting a human at the steering wheel can sort out all the problems and save time in fixing the functionality of AI.
Future of AI in customer service
The future of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is uncertain, and a well-known influencer in the tech industry, Elon Musk, has called for a delay in the development of more advanced AI systems. In March 2023, Musk and a group of AI experts and industry leaders agreed to a six-month delay to research the potential risks and threats associated with AI thoroughly. While some people see AI as a potential danger, others believe it can be used to improve customer service by collecting data on changing customer needs. This delay will help ensure that AI development is responsible and safe for everyone.
The use of AI in customer service has become increasingly important both for businesses and customers; based on customers’ demands, AI actions depend. Even if AI in customer service covers a huge number of tools with great benefits, it can produce some fears that companies must take care of. AI tools like chatbots and virtual assistants offer insights into the future of AI in customer service. While acknowledging potential risks, such as the loss of personal touch, companies should use AI solutions in conjunction with human agents.
