The Pros and Cons of AI in Customer Support
For a business to be successful, it must have an effective customer relationship management system. The use of artificial intelligence (AI) to automate and optimise customer relationship management (CRM) operations is becoming more common in today’s market. For example, chatbots and artificial intelligence-enabled communication have made round-the-clock interactions and customer support a reality.
What is Customer Service Automation?
While advising or assisting customers with their requests, Customer Support Automation (also known as automated customer service) is a purpose-built system that strives to decrease or eliminate the need for human participation whenever possible. Customer service is defined as the act of understanding a customer’s needs and providing assistance that meets those demands in the most basic manner possible.
Customer service automation is used by many firms to boost the efficiency of their support representatives. Attempts are made to assist clients while requiring less direct human interaction. Moreover, it protects enterprises from high call volumes, speeds up customer support procedures, and decreases the possibility of human error.
Examples of Call Center Automation Technology
In the call centre and customer service industry, automation is a wide concept with multiple applications. Examples of common contact centre automation tool applications include, but are not limited to the following:
Chatbots for client self-service across social media, SMS, and live chat are becoming increasingly popular.
For example, auto-suggested knowledge content, automatic case creation, and following best practices are all examples of CRM process automation or agent assistance.
Social media monitoring and social case routing are two examples of what we do.
IVR with a conversational tone
Knowledge bases and customer portals are two types of information resources.
Chatbots that interact with agents
The Pros of AI Customer Support
There are numerous benefits to implementing more complex automation into your service toolbox, including the following:
Response Times That Are Faster
Timeliness is the single most important component in providing good customer service for telecommunications customers.
Consumers make up three-quarters of the population. When it comes to most organisations, the kind of speed that customers demand is not feasible, at least not on a large scale. On live chat, SMS, and phone conversations, customers can expect responses in less than a minute, while the standards for world-class customer response time on email, Facebook, and Twitter are all 15 minutes or less.
Automation allows businesses to ultimately meet, if not exceed, their customers’ expectations. Using email automation, for example, agents may analyse incoming emails and automatically generate responses that can be evaluated and sent in one-fifth the time.
Customer Dissatisfaction Has Dropped
Several studies have found that expressing their problems to too many persons is a contributing factor to unsatisfactory customer service experiences in 72 per cent of cases. This danger is reduced when the correct information is automatically given to the appropriate persons. Chatbots and agent support automation can also improve first contact resolution to the point where fewer transfers are required in the first place, reducing the need for customers to repeat their problems.
Service hours and channels have been extended.
More than a decade ago, customers did not expect firms to be available and responsive across a wider range of channels. Today, they do. Automation is the sole technique for dealing with extra interaction channels without having to hire a large number of new employees. Companies that provide Facebook Messenger customer support, for example, commonly utilise a chatbot as the first point of contact, escalating the issue to a human agent only when the chatbot is unable to fix the issue.
The cost per interaction has been reduced.
The use of self-service solutions, such as chatbots, which can resolve issues before they are escalated to live agents, represents a significant cost-saving opportunity, in part because they eliminate the need for a phone call, thereby diverting volume away from more expensive communication channels. An email automation solution can respond to incoming customer emails for as little as $1 per email, compared to the $5–6 per email that it would typically cost for a human to process the same email.
Another alternative to consider is the use of outsourced call centre services. While managing and upgrading automation technology, call centre automation allows you to divert your most expensive (human) workers to higher-value tasks, so providing them more time to address more complex client concerns.
Human Errors are reduced.
The use of call centre automation technologies can help to reduce the number of human errors. Even if people are exceptionally good at empathising with others, they fall short when it comes to doing repetitive, time-consuming tasks such as inputting data into a case or looking through thousands of knowledge base articles to locate the most relevant one.
In contact centre automation systems, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technologies evolve and become more accurate over time as they are used. This is owing to their ability to learn from prior interactions and absorb new information, which allows them to change their behaviour in the future.
The Cons of AI Customer Support
There are various benefits to using chatbots and artificial intelligence to enhance customer support, but this does not imply that there are no hazards associated with using these technologies. Even if you’re considering implementing artificial intelligence (AI) into your customer service network, you should be aware of the potential disadvantages of doing so.
It’s time to go to training.
Your artificial intelligence programme should be fluent in the language of your clients so that they are not constantly faced with the irritating “I don’t understand” response.
One of the dangers is the possibility of losing that “personal touch.”
Customer service representatives may grow angry if they are unable to connect with a live person over the phone.
There is a bigger expense upfront.
Initially, implementing and training an artificial intelligence customer service will cost your company time, effort, and money.
4. There will always be situations in which artificial intelligence will be ineffectual.
AI is unable to resolve every customer care issue, whether it is a difficult problem or a consumer that is dissatisfied. To provide the greatest possible customer service experience, you will still need to provide customers with the opportunity to speak with a live person at some point.
Human Versus AI
The only way for businesses to retain clients and build loyalty in a competitive business environment is to pay attention to their needs and solve their concerns on an individual basis. While artificial intelligence can quickly amass knowledge, it has a difficult time replacing or duplicating genuine human interactions. The use of artificial intelligence to aid IT support services personnel enables them to be more strategic and efficient in their work.
Agents may concentrate on complex issues as chatbots and other artificial intelligence-enabled technology route calls, assist clients, and collect massive amounts of data in the background, freeing up their time. It will be possible to improve customer journeys and the path from lead to customer acquisition, as well as improve the entire customer experience.
