From forecasts to spam filters, artificial intelligence has long been used to help companies across industries. Within recent years, it’s begun to play a key role in a major business area: customer service.
Though it’s widely seen as a human-led sector, this form of tech could simplify a number of B2C tasks, likely boosting overall client experience as a result. In turn, this may very well improve brand reputation as well as profit turnover.
Let’s explore the main ways in which AI stands to enhance customer service within a business.
24/7 services at a lower cost
24/7 service helps us to respond to customers’ queries at any time – and this, in turn, can guarantee better client satisfaction and brand loyalty. Hire staff around the clock, though, and you usually end up paying twice as much to cover salaries and other necessary costs.
This, of course, eats into company money, often leaving little left over for enhancing company products and services. And this could impact clients’ experiences in the long run.
After all, our products are what tend to attract customers in the first place; if you don’t have enough to regularly improve what you’re selling, you risk a loss in sales. But AI offers a solution to this.
That’s is because it can be used to effectively answer customers’ queries on a 24/7 basis, at a reduced cost to the company. Aside from its installation price, the upkeep of AI tech is typically far cheaper than employee costs.
Most AI is still only able to respond to simple queries, so staff would still be required to resolve more complex issues. However, if tech can fulfil basic duties, fewer employees will be needed overall, meaning that businesses could still save money.
Improved customer engagement
Long gone are the days when automated customer service was frustratingly slow – within recent years, its interactive abilities have been vastly transformed.
Today, AI machines can actually analyse human speech – from language to tone of voice – to comprehend key behavioural indicators like context, outcome and vocal reactions.
This is thanks to Natural Language Processing (NLP) analytics tools, which are a key feature in much AI tech today. It can, for example, read the language of customer callers to help them achieve their goals. If the query is too advanced for the tech, it’s usually able to redirect the client to a relevant member of staff.
While tech obviously isn’t as emotionally receptive as people are, it may be in the future – and if so, it could cover all customer service duties in the future. Already, it offers a cheap alternative to paying staff to perform simple tasks.
Anticipating customer needs
AI-integrated systems aren’t just useful for giving real-time support – they can also be used to anticipate customers’ needs.
AI-assisted systems are able to achieve this through analysing the data that they’ve captured, from areas like call history and registered client behaviours and patterns.
Processes like call tracking, for example, can allow you to identify which advertising tools generate calls to your business. You’ll then be able to use this information to modify your client engagement plan to make it more effective.
Likewise, AI machines can reveal trends and preferences – and so, you could use this data to create a more bespoke service for customers. Consequently, you stand to increase client engagement, potentially raising your profit intake.
AI is already helping businesses to go above and beyond their goals – and its positive influence looks set to revolutionise the customer service sector. How will it benefit your company?
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