AI-based art generators have been gaining popularity lately. It is fascinating to see applications of AI growing as the day passes.

On the other hand, some use cases of AI have existed for some time now — the oldest of them being — AI customer service.

AI for customer service has been prevalent since the demand for personalized customer experience existed. As a result, almost every organization is turning to AI customer service to improve its support efficiency and customer experience.

AI in customer service brings a new paradigm for the future and is crucial for customer relationship management worldwide.

This article will explore the know-how, benefits, and applications of artificial intelligence for customer service. Read till the end to discover some exciting examples of AI in customer service.

Artificial Intelligence & Its Types

The first customer service revolution took place in the 1990s and inspired customers to talk to brands and businesses in entirely new ways. Fast forward to 2022, AI is available in multiple forms and has many use cases in various industries. It is divided into two broad categories:

1. General AI

General AI is something we see more often in movies. This type of AI can learn tasks on its own and is capable of doing whatever humans can do.

2. Narrow AI

Narrow AI is a part of our day-to-day lives — you can find it in smart devices like phones and computers. They’re intelligent systems that perform specific tasks without being programmed.

Example:

• Speech and voice recognition systems like Siri or Google Assistant

• Medical AI scanning MRI results

• Vision recognition systems in self-driving cars

Narrow AI has a wide application in terms of customer service. It supports customers by guiding them through websites/applications and assisting them instantly whenever they need it.

AI in Customer Service

AI enables support teams to interact with customers in a personalized manner and provide exceptional customer support. Chatbots can help with multiple tasks like collecting feedback, registering queries, reminding customers of items in an abandoned shopping cart, etc. AI enables a 24/7 availability around the globe and holds the fort when support agents are unavailable.

AI also contributes to customer service through data collection and analysis. AI can assist support teams in easily making sense of large amounts of data. It helps gain valuable insights into customer behavior, preferences, response time, support, churn rate, etc.

It is obvious that AI in customer service has wide applications. But how exactly does it improve customer experience? What are the benefits of incorporating artificial intelligence in customer service? Let’s find out.

Benefits of AI Customer Service

AI customer service has several advantages and helps with any daily task a human support agent performs (virtually). Let’s look at some benefits of artificial intelligence for customer service:

• Handles large volumes of data
• Pinpoints customer needs and expectations better
• Reduces average response time
• Offers proactive customer support
• Adapts to changing situations and make your organization more agile
• Makes performance tracking easier and reduces employee burnout
• Predicts future trends in the market
• Gives your support teams more time to focus on complex problems
• Improves lead generation
• Helps you cut costs and save on budget

AI for Customer Service: Use-Cases and Examples

With AI-powered tools and their widespread application, e-commerce businesses couldn’t ask for more in terms of customer satisfaction. Let’s explore the seamless integration of customer service & artificial intelligence;

1. Chatbots

Chatbots are the most common use cases of artificial intelligence customer service. Chatbots can help you handle routine questions and answer FAQs about delivery dates, order status, return status, or anything else derived from an internal database. It also cuts the overall operational costs for companies and improves their experience.

2. Agent Assist

Agent assist technology can help save the agent’s and customer’s time, decrease average handle time, and reduce the cost. It uses AI to:

1. Interpret what the customer is asking
2. Search knowledge-base articles
3. Display relevant information on customer service agents’ screens when they’re on call

3. Self-Service

Organizations that utilize self-service benefit across multiple metrics like increased revenue, reduced costs, improved customer satisfaction, improved agent experience, etc. According to a study, AI-powered self-service can help improve revenue by up to 4%.

AI can effectively identify the most common requests you can involve in your self-service.

Besides, AI-powered self-service tools offer more options and provide the ability to communicate with a more natural tone.

4. AI-Based Automation

Companies can automate multiple agent tasks based on robotic process automation. You can automate bots to perform many tasks; some of them include:

• Updating records

• Managing tickets/incidents

• Escalating issues

• Registering queries

• Providing proactive outreach

It can drastically reduce costs and improve efficiency & processing time. Your support agents can determine which processes take longer and need human assistance and which are repetitive queries that don’t need human intervention.

5. Machine Learning

Machine learning is key to analyzing large data sets and determining actionable insights from the data. Predictive analytics can help agents identify common queries and frame responses accordingly.

It can help your agents and other AI tools to adapt to a given situation based on prior data results and help customers solve problems through self-service.

6. Sentiment and Advanced Analytics

Sentiment analysis can help you analyze and identify how a customer feels while interacting with your customer service teams. It could help you de-escalate the situation in the case of any grievance. Sentiment analysis can create a more honest and wholesome picture of customer satisfaction.

7. Natural Language Processing

Many customer support teams use natural language processing (or NLP) as a part of their customer experience programs. NLP enables transcribing interactions across multiple channels (such as email, chat, etc.) and then analyzing the data to identify customer trends. NLP eliminates redundancies found during the analysis to create a more efficient system of customer satisfaction.

AI and Customer Service: What Does the Future Hold?

With several use cases for artificial intelligence for customer service, organizations must think more critically and take advantage of all available tools to create an unforgettable customer experience.

In today’s market, it is crucial to optimize resources to remain competitive. AI for customer service brings tremendous opportunities to both B2B and B2C companies. Invest in solutions that help you anticipate customer needs and deliver a superior customer experience.