Improving Customer Service with AI

Are your customers frustrated by your inability to respond to their questions quickly?

Today’s customer is quick to go elsewhere if they don’t receive fast and reliable customer service.

The digital technology era has provided us with new tools that can save our customer service teams from getting mired in manual data searches while your frustrated clients wait on hold.

The answer lies in artificial intelligence (AI), which can provide your customer care teams with the ability to get answers quickly, reducing the average call duration and ultimately, making for a happier customer.

The Challenge: Responding to Today’s Customer

What are the costs of bad customer service in today’s fast-paced climate? The ultimate cost, of course, is a lost opportunity. Bad customer service costs companies more than $62 billion annually. Just over one half of all customers (51%) will switch brands after only one negative customer service experience.

Now add the costs if that customer decides to spread their experience on social media. There are examples in the news everyday of companies getting blasted with negative PR for their inability to provide a quality customer experience and service culture.

The problem isn’t just increasing customer expectations, it’s the increasing massive quantity of data that customer service agents have to sift through to get the right answers for customers. It’s hard to provide split-second real-time care when the customer service team is hampered by all the operational data at their fingertips. Is your customer service team looking in multiple places for information while the client is on hold? Why not give your service team better tools to get answers faster and keep your customers satisfied?

A Better Approach: AI and Intelligent Search

Incorporating AI into your customer support processes changes the game completely. Enter: Cognitive Engagement – chat bots, intelligent agents, and machine learning can enable customer service teams by handling interactions or getting your customer agents answers in real time. The technology uses natural language processing and machine learning (ML) to understand the intent of the user’s question and search through the customer service database to find the right answers. That means searches will yield better insight more quickly. These platforms improve with age; they are “self-learning,” meaning that ML algorithms hone their response based upon prior activity. In time, answers should be returned based not only on the query but also on the kinds of data the unique user tends to search for.

It’s in this way that AI can help improve the customer services processes and have a positive impact on the retention of your customer base.

Here are six ways AI and Intelligent Search can positively impact your service culture:

1.  Automate basic inbound customer service support inquiries with Chatbots and Virtual Assistants
2.  Eliminate frustrating delays and reduce average service desk call durations, particularly for handling customer complaints
3.  Drive personalized recommendations and up sells in real-time
4.  Enhance the productivity of your customer service reps – faster access to information, assets, and FAQs
5.  Improve interactions – machine learning algorithms  can analyze customer conversations as they happen. It then alerts managers in real-time whenever ther is an opportunity to enhance the customer experience.
6.  AI as a data access enabler – quickly mine for insights based on more than just the written query.

Gartner suggests that by 2020, 85% of all customer interactions will be managed without a human customer service rep. While the need for human contact will never be eliminated from customer service, customer service can be greatly enhanced with a n AI and Knowledge Management solution.

About ikaun

Ikaun is an AI-Powered knowledge management platform that helps organizations transform how they create, discover, and share knowledge to increase productivity and operational efficiency.

Ikaun’s Intelligent Knowledge Assistant help users quickly find relevant information and answers quickly. Ikaun enables knowledge sharing and insightful collaboration to help employees access information quickly, reduce manual work, and make better decisions. Try it for free.