5 Ways that AI can Support Customer Care Teams
By Can Ozdoruk, Netomi
Bruce works for a large sportswear retailer, where he is a manager in the company’s customer support office. The winter ski and snowboard season is fast-approaching, and customers are inquiring about returns, shipping issues and payment methods. How can he and his team quickly and proactively respond to, and resolve these issues? How can they go above and beyond customer expectations to offer an excellent experience, and encourage brand loyalty? How can they streamline customer support across various channels, so it is convenient for all?
To thrive in today’s rapidly evolving and competitive business landscape, businesses need to embrace digital transformation at scale, and harness emerging tools such as Artificial Intelligence (AI). Below are five ways that AI can help to better support customer care teams, to enhance the overall customer experience.
1. It helps to automate much of the mundane work
AI can automate resolutions to high-volume, repeatable tickets such as order status and baggage fees, which can constitute anywhere between 40 and 60% of tickets. This frees up human agents to focus on the more complex issues, decreasing resolution time across the board. For many customers, time is of the essence - in a survey of more than 700 U.S. consumers, 47% of respondents expect fast and convenient support, while 44% said that waiting for a response is a leading source of frustration. AI paves the way for around-the-clock support, so issues can swiftly be resolved as soon as they arise.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, for instance, airline WestJet was inundated with a surge of questions from customers, regarding cancellations and flying restrictions. However, with its AI-based chatbot, the company was able to resolve 87% of all incoming customer questions, with no human intervention, deflecting tens of thousands of calls from its team of agents.
2. It works alongside agents, serving as their trusty sidekick
While some may fear that AI is going to replace human agents, this is actually far from the truth. AI-powered virtual agents actually are designed to enhance the agent experience, making their jobs more fulfilling while also boosting productivity. The ultimate goal is to optimize the agent’s time, so any task that the AI can perform, such as confirming a security question on an account or gathering basic information before a ticket ever reaches an agent, will make a significant impact. AI agents can also decrease resolution time by summarizing tickets, so agents are well-versed in the basic details of a customer’s query before interacting with them. This is just like an administrative assistant who summarizes the findings of a large report, providing her superior with a list of its key bullet points.
AI agents can do the majority of this mundane and entry-level work, before intelligently routing customer queries to the right agent. Then, they can suggest replies or actions based on various contextual factors, the customer’s profile, and information that was gleaned from an earlier exchange with the customer. This will enable the human agent to easily select the best response or update the response if needed, ultimately helping them to work more efficiently and effectively.
3. It provides a personalized experience, that will ultimately drive revenue
AI can access relevant customer data from back-end systems to arm an agent with unique insights to unlock upsell or cross sell opportunities. A key concept that arises here is personalization - getting to know your customers, remembering them, and treating them as individuals. This is a concept that many have come to admire and expect - 80% of consumers are more inclined to do business with a company if it offers a personalized experience. Yet this would not be possible without the power of data - by leveraging user data such as purchase history and travel records, their experience can be customized. Armed with these data-driven insights, agents can then offer a personalized touch. For instance, last winter a family travelled to Barbados to celebrate their daughter, Caroline’s birthday. Might they consider a similar trip to Jamaica around the same time this year (and by the way, Happy Birthday, Caroline)!
4. It allows businesses to scale to new channels…
Offering support across channels is critical, whether that may be email, SMS, chat, Facebook Messenger, or voice platforms such as Alexa - wherever your customer is, this is where you need to be. It is also important to ensure fluidity across channels, that is, a single customer profile should exist across channels, and they should not have to restart the conversation from scratch if they reach out via email in one instance, and then Facebook in another. WIthout adopting AI, most companies don’t have the resources to staff a human-only team to ensure presence on all the channels that matter most.
5. …and allows for teams to keep up during busy times
What if there is just not enough manpower? Having an AI solution in place will afford teams the ability to scale up and down quickly without adding expensive, short-term hires, and to deal with expected and unexpected spikes in tickets, in order to keep resolution time down and customer satisfaction up.
It can also enable teams to scale during a labor crisis, as today, 74 percent of call center agents are at risk of burnout, and turnover rates are among the highest of any industry, hovering between 30 and 45%. Today in the U.S., there are around 25% fewer call center agents answering phones than there were prior to the pandemic. How can smaller teams keep up with the spike in ticket volume across industries such as food delivery and retail? AI can remove some of the burden by offloading repetitive tasks, as well as boost the competency of agents by offering real-time training and support. If an agent is unsure about a specific policy, for example, an AI can source relevant training documents.
When it comes to customer service and support, AI presents a wealth of opportunities, and allows call centers to remain ahead of the curve amidst the current landscape. It greatly improves the agent experience by enabling them to focus on more complex and creative tasks, and provides customers with timely, proactive and always-on support.
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About the Author: Can has been in SaaS Marketing since getting his MBA from USC. He worked in enterprises, i.e., Nvidia as well as startups like PerimeterX. He advises early-stage startups and publishes frequently. His insights on customer service and the benefits AI can provide the industry have been featured in publications like Retail Next, CustomerThink, G2, and Clutch.