Benefits of using AI in customer service

If you’re unsure about starting with AI customer service strategies or are unfamiliar with how it can assist your team, here are some of the benefits you can expect:

• Reduced workload for your staff. Having AI tools in place can lighten the workload for employees who handle customer service. This can allow them to focus on essential tasks rather than repetitive, administrative duties. Employees might feel as if they can dedicate more time to critical responsibilities, which can help reduce staff burnout.

• Improved efficiency. AI solutions tackle important yet time-consuming tasks to resolve customer needs faster. This means you can help more people, and customers might not have to wait as long to get the answers or solutions they want.  

• Better customer experience. Streamlined processes make customers happier. AI can assist customers who want to use self-serve tools to manage their products and services. AI may help your team address customer needs more efficiently.

• Personalized options. By learning about your customers and their habits, AI can personalize suggestions. It can also gather information about customers before they interact with a live person so your customer service agents can greet them by name and have some background on their inquiries. 

• Round-the-clock support. Staffing the customer service department 24/7 isn’t practical for many small businesses. By pairing AI and customer service members together, you can offer round-the-clock coverage for many issues. Customers can get a response to many situations if you add automation elements. They can find answers and use self-serve options, such as managing subscriptions or initiating returns. 

• Gaining insight. AI helps you gather and analyze data about your customers. The tools can allow you to gather feedback, understand preferences and look for trends in customers’ behaviors. With this information, you can tailor your offerings to better meet the needs of your customer base.

AI customer service methods

AI can handle several aspects of the customer service process. Your organization might need only some of the tools based on how you run your business and what types of customer interactions you have regularly. The following AI customer service strategies give you an idea of what the technology can do for your company.

1. Chatbots to answer customer questions

Customers who come to your website often need specific information or help. Chatbots give them a way to access answers without calling a customer service line, spending a long time looking on your website or waiting for a live chat agent to assist them. Chatbot technology can automatically generate answers to common questions you get from customers.

2. Routing customer calls

Not all inquiries are simple enough to be answered with chatbots, and some customers still prefer talking to a human. AI can help you route a caller to the appropriate department or a specific person who can best help them. This cuts down on customers talking to one person only to be passed on to someone else. It can also help your customer service team work more efficiently because they don’t spend time with clients they can’t help. 

3. Personalized shopping recommendations

If your business has an online shopping option, AI could encourage your customers to buy more items. The technology can analyze their past searches and patterns to identify other products that might match their needs. Suggesting those products to the customer could encourage them to add them to their cart. 

4. Increased language options

When you reach a wide audience, you often attract customers from different cultures. If your customer service team is made up of English-speaking individuals, communicating with speakers of languages other than English can present challenges. Because it may not be possible or feasible to hire agents who are fluent in a wide range of languages, AI tools can be used to translate languages for your agents and allow them to deliver quality customer service despite the language barriers.  

5. Creating content for marketing

If content is part of your marketing strategy, AI could make the creation process more efficient. You might not have enough time to devote to creating emails, blog posts, FAQs, web content and other written products.

AI can develop all types of content to fill out your website, social media accounts and other online locations. Providing specific prompts that detail what you need can give you better results. Once you have your AI-generated content, make sure to have the content reviewed by your marketing team and make revisions to ensure the content is aligned with your organization’s goals, voice and culture. 

6. Organizing support tickets

If your organization uses a support ticket system, AI can help organize and prioritize those requests. This frees your staff up to handle the actual work without spending a lot of time reviewing and manually sorting the issues. AI uses natural language processing to evaluate each ticket. This helps prioritize tasks, escalate urgent issues and route the tickets to the appropriate people, all of which help serve more customers and reduces processing time for support requests. 

Tips for implementing AI in customer service

Getting started with AI can seem overwhelming. Use these best practices to help you implement it effectively:

• Evaluate your current processes. Get feedback from your team to see where they can best streamline their tasks. Look for inefficiencies or redundant tasks that could be remedied with AI. 

• Create goals for AI. Identify specific tasks you want to transition to AI and how you want the technology to help. This can help you choose AI tools and implement them effectively.

• Train your team. Your customer service team can perform better when they understand how your AI tools work. Ensure they know how to fully use all the tools at their disposal as well. 

• Test out your options. It can take some experimenting to utilize AI products to their full potential. You need to understand how they integrate with other tools you use. Learning the features of the product is also important. You might find that some AI options work better for you than others as you experiment. 

• Protect data and privacy. To maintain trust with your customers, ensure their data stays secure with the use of AI. Review the regulations in your area related to privacy to ensure any AI products you use comply with them. 

• Evaluate and modify. Use analytics from your AI tools to determine how well they’re working. Getting feedback from your team and customers can also help you decide if you need to make changes to how you use AI. 

FAQs about AI and customer service

Are there drawbacks to using AI customer service tools?

Some consumers resist technology and automated processes, so using AI could make people feel uncomfortable. While AI becomes more advanced, the quality of AI tools can also vary, potentially giving you mixed results. Relying too heavily on AI can take away the human aspect of your customer service department. The lack of emotional intelligence from AI can further frustrate customers. 

Do I have to use AI for customer service?

No organization has to use AI in customer service. However, it can give you the edge if your competitors don’t use AI. It can also improve your processes. If you’re hesitant to try AI, start slowly with one small tool. Measure the results from this strategy to see if it’s worth it to your company. You can add more AI tools as you gain comfort with the technology.