One surefire way to save time and money is to use AI customer service in your business. If you are like most business owners, you are always on the lookout for new and innovative ways to improve your business. We’re here to tell you that AI-assisted customer service is a quick and easy win.
In this blog post, we’ll take a look at 10 ways an AI-powered customer service chatbot can help your business grow. So, whether you’re looking to cut costs, improve efficiency, or simply improve your customer experience, read on to find out how AI can help.
What is AI customer service?
AI customer service is an artificial intelligence system that interacts with customers on behalf of a company. The artificial intelligence system is programmed to respond to customer questions and requests and can mimic human conversation using natural language processing. Often this takes the form of customer support chatbots and customer self-service tools.
At the same time, artificial intelligence technology can also be used for customer service, but in a more intimate way. For example, brands can use machine learning to analyze customer data. They can then use this data to better serve the audience.
The global AI market is predicted to reach over half a trillion US dollars by 2024, and reach $1.5 trillion by 2030. The popularity of AI technologies continues to grow. At the same time, AI for customer service is becoming more commonplace, and more and more potential use cases are becoming apparent.
10 ways an AI customer service chatbot can improve your business
For many businesses, using AI for customer service is a surefire way to gain a competitive edge.
It helps companies save money on customer support costs and improve the efficiency of their customer service operations. And AI-assisted customer service can help increase customer satisfaction by providing them with a more personalized experience.
Here are 10 ways your AI chatbot can improve your business!
1. Provide customer support in multiple languages
When you provide your chatbot with multilingual capabilities, you open up your audience significantly. Being able to speak to people in their preferred language is a plus when it comes to customer service. There are four main reasons why you need a multilingual chatbot:
- Customer Interaction: People are more likely to communicate in their preferred language. Speaking in a language you are not comfortable with can be intimidating. Let customers communicate in their preferred language and monitor their engagement.
- Sales Potential: 72% of shoppers are more likely to buy a product if it is offered in their preferred language.
- Customer loyalty: Would you rather shop in a place where your language is spoken or in a place where you are not understood? The point is.
- Competitive Advantage: Expanding your digital customer experience can give you a competitive advantage. Offering customers instant service in their preferred language is one easy win.
Source: Rise
2. Answer frequently asked questions and save your team time
Frequently Asked Questions about Customer Service Chatbots have a lot of advantages. They free your internal team from answering repetitive questions, giving them time to do expert work. With an FAQ chatbot, you can watch your office productivity jump and your internal team’s satisfaction increase.
Source: Major Tom
3. Gather customer demographic information
Every time your chatbot talks, it collects information. Your chatbot analytics can provide you with valuable insights about your customers. This data will help you understand who your customers are and what they want.
With chatbot analytics in hand, you can improve your customer engagement strategy.
This data can help you understand where your customers are having problems. Is there something people always complain about or ask for? Find and fix! Do customers always ask about product improvements? Again, a great opportunity to give people what they want!
4. Customized shopping support
Any opportunity to move your customer through the sales funnel should be seized. Often when you implement AI for customer support, you provide a personalized shopping experience.
AI-powered chatbots use machine learning to better understand customer queries. If a customer gives an AI chatbot a few clues, such as “I’m looking for blue suede shoes,”the chatbot can navigate through your catalogs and find the right product.
Source: Rise
The AI can observe your shoppers’ online behavior and then suggest similar products it thinks your shoppers might like. And if shoppers are having a hard time finding or understanding a product, chatbots can provide them with a solution.
5. Transform deals and upsells
AI bots can track your customers’ shopping habits. How often do customers buy two products together? Your chatbot can sell these product combinations to new customers. Or you can program your chatbot to offer popular services to customers.
Source: Okie
You can also program your chatbot to advertise offers to you. This can be especially helpful during the weeks leading up to big e-commerce days like Black Friday or Cyber Monday.
6. Anticipate trends
There’s a lot of data there. With enough time, effort, and intelligence, you can predict future trends in your industry. But who wants to sit and analyze data? You have better things to do, like running your own business.
AI can do the analytics for you. AI can scan the vast amount of data available on the internet and predict future trends.
AI technology can give brands the ability to proactively market their products. If you could accurately predict the trends that will affect your industry, you could plan ahead.
7. Make Store Appointments
The concierge at the front desk is no longer needed if you have an AI-based customer service. You can use this technology to make in-store appointments for your customers, reducing your labor costs.
8. Reduce customer wait times
With an always-on customer service chatbot, your customers no longer have to wait in line for service. Long waiting times will frustrate your customers. Many people would rather schedule a callback than wait on hold.
9. Improve customer retention
Nothing loses customers faster than a disappointing experience. In today’s competitive digital market, customers have a huge choice. If you make it difficult or frustrating people, they will simply go to your competitor.
An AI-powered customer service chatbot can help retain your customers by responding to their queries immediately or helping them find what they need. These chatbots can make the customer journey a lot smoother.
10. Provide a consistent user experience
The chatbot is programmed by you and uses machine learning to become more proficient at its job. This means that only the experience you have designed is provided to the end user. Chatbots don’t have bad days and don’t lash out when they’re upset.
By using the same chatbot across all of your brand’s channels, you can provide a consistent user experience anytime, anywhere.
What are the benefits of using AI for customer support?
You can think of AI as one of the best members of your customer support team. They are always available, never complain and are super organized. Check out the full list of benefits you’ll get by using AI for customer support!
AI “on”24/7
With AI-powered chatbots, you always have an “employee” available to your customer base. The persistent nature of chatbots means that your customers who ask for support will be taken care of, no matter what time of day or night it is. And you don’t have to force a person (or yourself) to answer calls in the middle of the night to achieve this.
AI saves your team time so they can focus on bigger tasks.
When routine, repetitive tasks, such as answers to frequently asked questions, are resolved, your team can focus on the tough tasks. Without having to respond to general customer inquiries, your team can look for ways to grow their business.
These challenging tasks to grow your business can take many forms. Perhaps it is an increased focus on maintaining positive customer relationships. Your team can take the time to compile a list of top leads or clients and then reach out to them to thank them for their loyalty with a discount or promotion.
AI Saves Money: One Chatbot Vs Help Desk
AI-driven chatbots are incredibly cost-effective. Because they are so adept at automating tasks, a single chatbot can take on the work usually done by multiple people. By spending money on installing a quality chatbot (emphasis on quality), you will save on labor costs in the long run.
High volume queries are executed and cleaned up
Imagine: Delivery was delayed during the holiday season due to supply chain issues. You have hundreds of requests for delivery times from distraught customers. Instead of painstakingly answering every single request, your AI chatbot responds to each person as soon as they reach out to you.
Your customers feel noticed, your response rates are excellent, and the holidays are saved. Chatbots can automate high-volume queries by only redirecting complex questions that need to be handled by a real agent.
AI can improve the customer support process
AI chatbots can help improve the customer support process. As mentioned earlier, they help reduce waiting times and can act like personal shoppers. You can also program them to talk to your customers in an adorable manner or give them a friendly avatar.
Source: Rise
AI gives your team more context for customer requests
AI-driven chatbots can keep a history of customer interactions with your brand. Then, if they contact you again or need to speak with an agent, your company representatives can use the conversation history to better serve them.
Conversational AI makes your customers feel at ease
One of AI’s greatest strengths is its ability to mimic human behavior. Conversational AI can provide natural, human interactions with your customers. Often natural language processing is used for this.
It may sound strange, but conversational AI can in some ways make people feel more at ease than talking to a human. Humans are unpredictable, but chatbots are not.
Every conversation in one place
If you (like most businesses today) have more than one digital touchpoint, it can be frustrating to switch platforms to respond to customer inquiries. When you use a platform that uses AI for customer support, everything is likely to be collected in one place. If not, you might want to rethink your AI proposal.
One benefit of this approach is that you can take a look at your dashboard and get an idea of all the conversations going on at the same time.
Source: Rise
AI can create more accessibility
Giving people contact options for your business increases your reach. Not everyone can or wants to call and chat with a customer service representative. Give people a choice when it comes to being able to connect with you, and you can better serve the under-represented part of society.
AI for customer support allows consumers to communicate quickly and reliably with your business. This allows your business to meet their needs immediately, giving them the freedom and flexibility to respond when it is most convenient for them.
AI can help train your customer service team
Some forms of artificial intelligence technology can detect certain keywords and then respond with hints. You can program the AI to give your internal team answers to tough questions. Dialpad Real Time Assistance (RTA) cards, for example, pop up on their agents’ screens when callers ask specific questions.
Source: Dial pad
AI can work with object detection
Object detection can identify objects in an image or video, typically using machine learning. When you combine object detection and AI, your customers can potentially provide a photo of a product they like and have your AI program look for similar products in your catalog.
Source: Viso
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