Billions. That’s what organizations spend annually responding to repeatable customer service queries that could be automated with AI.
Companies are taking note. It’s expected that by 2020, customers will manage 85% of the relationship with an enterprise without interacting with a human. This is incredible.
Conservatively, 35% of a company’s customer service tickets span the same queries (some of our customers see the same 6-8 topics cover over 50% of their traffic). Companies see an immense impact on support costs when they start leveraging AI for customer support to respond to these queries without ever getting a human agent involved.
As more organizations adopt automated customer service, it’s important that AI is deployed to respond to the right tickets. Set your automated support function up for success by knowing where AI can shine, where it can be an amazing co-pilot to your human agents, and in which situations humans need to remain at the driver’s seat.
AI automates repeatable tickets
AI should be trained to respond to high-frequency, simple queries. Think about the tasks you might give new employees or even an army of interns. Transfer the responsibility of the straightforward queries that have a lot of historical data (to use for training), high volume (for ongoing learning and maximum impact) and low-business risk (for brand safety). Examples of repeatable queries that we automate for our customers include:
- Order status
- Refund requests and updates
- Policy questions (warranty, baggage fees, return/exchange)
- Store finder and hours
- Subscription/account changes
- Password resets
- Troubleshooting
- Product care and use
Make sure that your AI can access real-time information from Order Management Systems, CRM platforms, and other core business systems to resolve tickets in a few seconds. When customers are not kept waiting, CSAT increases.
Looking to maximize your CX? Discover what platform may be best for you in our comparison of Intercom vs. Zendesk.
AI uplifts human agents
AI can work wonders even when it’s not closing tickets.
Deploy AI when the human agent ultimately makes the decision. Train the AI to gather information and ask the initial questions before a ticket even reaches a human’s queue. A few examples of ways our customers deploy AI to collect information for a human agent include:
- Asking for an account or loyalty number
- Confirming an email address associated with an order or booking
- Asking for specifics around a problem the customer is experiencing
- Confirming the product, flight or date-of-stay that the customer is inquiring about
- Gathering the proof required for price adjustments
AI should also gather relevant information from CRM and other customer service platforms to package up all data needed for human agents to make a quick call.
Humans remain in control
Every company has sensitive situations that will always need human oversight. If there are questions about a recall, issues caused by using a product, complaints regarding service or even refunds over a certain amount, the company and customer will benefit from getting these tickets into the hands of the human agent quickly. The good news is that with AI automating resolutions to many tickets and assisting in a large percentage of the other queries, human agents will have more time to spend on these more complex customer needs and get to them quicker.
Are you ready to get started?
Let’s take a thoughtful approach to deploy automation across your customer support organization. We can help you identify where your customer service queries should fall across these three buckets: automated resolutions, AI + human tag-team, and human-owned queries.
Let’s chat.
For more information on AI and customer service, visit:
- Zendesk vs. Freshdesk: Which Is Better?
- Best Help Desk Software Platforms In 2021 [Features, Pricing, and More]
- 7 Ways to Provide Personalized Customer Service (Plus Benchmarks and Stats)
- What Is a Virtual Contact Center?
- Measures of Success: Our Top 10 Chatbot Evaluation Metrics
- Email Support: The Pros and Cons of AI Customer Service Tools
- Best Chatbot for a Website in 2022 and Beyond [Review and Key Features]
- The 15 Best Customer Experience (CX) Tools for 2022
- The Top 11 Zendesk Alternatives