Last year, the AI market grew to $327.5 billion. Banking, e-commerce, healthcare, entertainment — these are just a few industries altered by AI in the past few years. The further we go, the more businesses adapt AI to improve their performance and start providing better services. Customer support is one of these industries.
Almost 78% of users feel optimistic about AI and 66% believe AI will enhance business performance, which means most customers will be willing and ready to interact with AI-driven support teams.
How will AI change customer support, and why are these changes good?
In this article, we'll cover:
Support Will Truly Become Omnichannel
40% of users claim to use at least three communication channels to connect with customer support consultants. Modern users actively engage email, chats, calls, and even social media to communicate with support teams and resolve their issues fast. Not covering at least one of them means to cut a certain group of customers from their favorite communication channel, which will have a direct influence on customer satisfaction and retention rates.
Using AI to cover the easiest parts of communication like gathering contact information or sorting through customers’ requests will help support representatives pay more time and attention to resolving tickets and answering queries, no matter what communication channel they come from.
62% of customers will recommend a brand to their friend if they have a great experience with it. Omnichannel support can easily become a little but significant detail that will help a business increase its customer base.
Fewer Cases Will Be Escalated
30% of US customers switch service providers after just one bad user experience. 50% have stopped in the middle of a purchase or a transaction as a result of a bad experience.
What do customers frequently regard as bad customer service? When their request is not resolved upon first contact. This often happens because tickets need to be escalated to an R&D team.
AI can help support teams resolve more difficult cases here and now. AI and ML solutions can be trained to recognize the root of customers’ issues and provide the support agent with an instant solution.
While implementing such a solution is not an easy task in itself, dedicating time and resources to developing it will 100% pay off in the long run.
Resolution Time Will Decrease
Average Resolution Time, or ART, is the main metric that shows the effectiveness of the support team and their level of product knowledge.
AI can help with both:
- Effectiveness of the team can be boosted by implementing AI into the resolution process (as described above).
- An AI-enhanced system can tailor a standard training course in accordance with an agent’s pre-existing knowledge and experience. AI can also help detect a certain topic or a piece of information missed by the entire or most of the team and pay additional time and attention to it. AI can close all the gaps in the team’s knowledge and personalize even the most routine tests.
Continuous education and AI-enhanced resolution will help support professionals decrease ART.
More Self-Service Options Will Emerge
81% of customers make an attempt to take care of their issues themselves. 91% say they would use a knowledge base if it met their needs and provided them with the required information.
Usually, there are several reasons a business fails to adopt a self-service option:
- They fail to promote it and customers simply do not know about it
- The KB doesn’t cover the customers’ needs to the fullest extent
- It is hard to navigate
- It doesn’t cover the most common customers’ issues
- Customers simply prefer talking to support consultants to get “human touch”
AI can help support teams not only build the knowledge base that will include the most popular issues and the easiest resolutions, but update it on a regular basis and keep it up to date in industry and product development.
It also opens support teams up to paying their full attention to more severe and urgent cases, which can improve the quality of customer interaction and have a direct impact on CSAT.
Support Teams Will Become More Productive
Overall, AI has the potential to make support teams more productive and customer interaction more efficient. With more time going into actual resolution and customer communication, there is no doubt AI is shaping the future of not only customer interaction, but of the entire customer support industry.
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Anna started out in financial markets, diving into daily research on bonds and stocks. A passionate reader with a love for historical literature and international cuisine, she’s now all about mastering customer communication. She writes in-depth about customer support, backed by extensive research, and has become an expert on the topic.
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