In a matter of a few years, customer service activities have become a lot more complex and demanding. Today, customers have high expectations from businesses and they want customer-centric services in almost all matters. Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become a key technology that caters to changing business dynamics. That's why the buzz around AI customer service is increasing.
AI has the potential to optimize traditional customer service practices and bring automation and tailored services to customers. In fact, 80% of customers who interacted with AI tools for customer service had a positive experience. Besides that, 63% of retail organizations are already using AI to enhance customer service.
So, if your organization is also planning to begin the journey of deploying AI customer service but is unclear about its usability, then this guide is for you. Here, we are going to discuss the top 9 reasons to use AI customer service, which will help you make informed decisions.
AI Customer Service ā A Quick Overview
As the name implies, AI customer service is about leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI) to handle customer service activities. It is meant to automate and assist in different customer service processes using different sets of AI tools and technologies.
The nature of AI in customer service varies from organization to organization. However, some of the common AI-based customer service processes include:
- Chatbots: It is a smart AI tool that can intelligently reply to customer queries using pre-trained data. It can carry out human-like conversations and help customers resolve their queries. For example, if a customer wants to know about the shipment, the chatbot can provide the exact answer.
- Automated Ticketing System: It is an intelligent AI ticketing system that receives, prioritizes, categorizes, and routes customer support tickets by analyzing the query and urgency level.
- Virtual Assistant: It is an AI virtual assistant that can understand queries, provide personalized responses, and interact with backend systems.
- Voice Recognition Systems: It is an AI voice recognition system that can listen to customer voice inputs and understand and transcribe them.
- Predictive Analytics: It is an AI tool/system that can analyze customer data to deliver useful predictive analytics, like common problems, customer satisfaction level, etc.
Overall, AI customer service has a diverse range of application areas. Therefore, companies can leverage AI in customer service depending on their needs.
9 Reasons to Use AI Customer Service
Now that we have cleared the basics of AI customer service, let's get deep into evaluating the top reasons to use AI customer service.
1. 24/7 Customer Support Availability
The first and the most dominating benefit of AI in customer service is the availability of 24/7 customer support. Instead of having a team of human customer support agents to handle queries during business hours, you are able to handle customer support queries 24/7.
To better understand, assume that you have integrated an AI chatbot, such as VOC AI Agent. The chatbot is trained with your company data and is capable of answering customer queries on its own. So, if a customer sends a query at 2 am at night, the chatbot can assist the customer and answer the query based on its pre-trained data. This way, you can reduce the reliance on a large team of human agents and offer customers 24/7 customer support with AI.
2. Enhanced Efficiency
AI customer service is the key to enhancing the efficiency of your whole customer service process. It can offer:
- Instant responses to queries and reduced wait time.
- Fast resolution to queries.
- No downtimes or delays in replies.
When customers experience efficient customer service, their satisfaction increases. Statistics say that 78% of consumers will do business with the company again if its customer service is excellent. This means that enhanced customer service efficiency leads to customer retention and more sales.
3. Cost Efficiency
AI customer service helps save significant costs. Deploying AI tools like chatbots and virtual assistants eradicates the need for large customer support teams. This lowers the cost spent on salaries, training, and other expenses. Besides that, AI tools are capable of handling a high volume of inquiries at the same time without costing extra. In short, you can save up significant costs once you begin deploying AI in customer service.
Read more: AI Customer Service | 7 Best Tools for 2024
4. Customer Data Analysis
When you incorporate AI in customer service, you are actually getting a deeper understanding of consumer behavior with data analysis. Many AI tools can analyze vast customer data to help you spot trends in customer behavior. For instance, if you deploy a VOC AI chatbot, it can provide insights about its interactions with customers to help you make analytics-based decisions to enhance customer satisfaction.
5. Increased Quality and Consistency
AI customer service brings consistency into the support process. Unlike human agents, AI does not offer varying service quality levels. All customers get the same high-quality responses based on predefined guidelines. This uniformity increases support quality and consistency, which helps build customer trust.
6. Scalability
The volume of customer queries grows as your business expands. If you have deployed AI tools, then they are capable of handling the increased volume without compromising performance. For example, VOC AI Agent is a customer service AI chatbot that can easily handle hundreds of simultaneous interactions without delaying responses for any customer. So, AI customer service gives peace of mind when the business scales.
7. Personalization
Today, 76% of customers want personalization. They want to receive tailored experiences. So, the same applies to customer service. That's what AI can offer to customers.
AI technology can personalize customer interactions by analyzing customer data and preferences. For example, an AI chatbot can greet customers by name and recall past interactions. On top of that, it can suggest products/services that align with the interests of the customer. These practices can enhance customer satisfaction and increase the likelihood of repeat orders.
8. Multichannel Support
AI technology in customer service can integrate with multiple communication channels. For instance, if you use a VOC AI chatbot, a single chatbot can integrate with a website (as a live chat), WhatsApp, email, Facebook, Shopify, and more. So, it allows customers to interact from the channel of their choice while still getting the same quality customer service experience.
9. Continuous Improvement
AI customer service is driven by ML models that continuously learn from interactions with customers. This not only makes them offer tailored responses that customers want but also enables the system to evolve and improve over time. Simply put, customer service with AI can gradually become more accurate and efficient in handling customer needs.
Wrapping Up
AI customer service is the need of the hour. It is the key to modernizing customer service and tailoring it to changing customer needs. However, there are many ways to leverage AI in customer service. You can set up a chatbot, virtual assistant, automated ticketing system, and other similar systems. So, take the first step today. Evaluate your customer service needs and explore AI solutions that can transform your business with enhanced customer experience and improved efficiency.
