AI has long become an irreplaceable helper for customer support and service teams. Support professionals have integrated it in CRM systems, chatbots, canned replies, and so on.
Conversational AI is the next step in the evolution of customer support. It is what separates a properly functioning AI-powered support system from a chatbot that can only give a user a very limited amount of information.
Conversational AI is getting popular and important, so it’s high time we talk about it.
In this article, we'll cover:
What Is Conversational AI?
Conversational AI is a set of technologies that can recognize speech and text input and respond to customers’ inquiries in a human-like fashion. This makes the job of customer support and service teams easier, as they have a possibility to engage AI to answer customers’ replies without damaging the quality of their responses and the level of their CSAT.
The best example of conversational AI is Siri, Apple’s voice assistant.
Chatbot vs. Conversational AI
Conversational AI is an umbrella term that also includes chatbots. In this case, a well-programmed chatbot is a good example of a conversational AI-based technology.
How Can Support Teams Leverage Conversational AI?
Intent Detection
Intent detection — a process used by a bot to correctly pick up the intent behind a message or phrase.
Imagine — you are calling a support team to find more about the possibilities of a newly-purchased software only to be connected to a specialist who only deals with L1 support tickets and can’t talk about the software in detail. They reroute you to several other specialists and after several minutes of waiting, you can finally ask your question.
Being on hold all this time will frustrate customers anywhere.
Conversational AI can help support teams to correctly detect and identify every customer’s request and route their chats and calls directly to an appropriate specialist. This would cut the waiting time and increase CSAT in the long run.
Authentication
It takes a support consultant up to 45 seconds to authenticate a user. It is a real time-waster for busy support teams with a heavy ticket flow.
Conversational AI can save a support team’s time and perform this task for them. By using voice and speech pattern recognition, an AI-powered assistant can authenticate users without any human interaction.
Such a system would require installing various cybersecurity measures, such as secure data storage and processing facilities. A business that wants to implement voice recognition needs to consider this and prepare itself for additional expenses, or entrust its customer service to a professional Support-as-a-Service provider.
Answering the Most Popular Inquiries
An automated FAQ can help support teams that need to do both — answer repetitive questions and deal with L2 and L3 tickets.
Using conversational AI to automate answering the most popular questions via voice calls or chatbots will not only save heaps of time, but will also save support teams from burning out.
AI can also help businesses compile the most frequent and easiest questions to save effort and resources. It can analyze incoming tickets and compile the list of the most repeated questions and inquiries. Support consultants can then answer them and upload the answers into the system. It will allow AI to communicate with users whenever needed.
Order Management
State-of-the-art systems powered by conversational AI can go as far as processing orders, answering customers’ questions about the status of their orders, and, as was already mentioned, answer the most popular questions about the ordering process.
If integrated correctly, bots and voice assistants can even edit customers’ orders without the need to include a support consultant into the conversation.
Note: the option to connect with a human customer service and support professionals must be there, so that a customer wouldn’t have to connect with a brand all over again just to connect with a human. Fully replacing support consultants with an AI system will cause more churn and will play a crucial role in a falling CSAT, as 70% of customers still want to interact with a live support professional.
Multilingual Support
There are around 334 million businesses worldwide. Millions of them work with international customers who, in their majority, want to be spoken to in their own language.
Setting up a multilingual customer support team requires a wide HR infrastructure and a multicultural environment that not all businesses have the resources to build. For them, a conversational AI can help set up multilingual support without having to invest resources into hiring a support team all over the world.
Which Industries Can Benefit From Conversational AI?
Banking
The most useful feature: intent detection
Banking has several different directions a customer can go in:
- Issuing credit and debit cards
- Managing loans
- Checking account status
- Investment management
- Retail banking and so on
So many options make universal customer service almost impossible. A customer who is calling a bank’s hot line is certain to be in need of a certain professional’s assistance, and making them hold to reroute their call is simply not acceptable.
Conversational AI can take care of intent detection and route customers’ calls to reduce waiting time and open up the hot line for the simplest questions and issues.
Hospitality
The most useful feature: booking management
Large and medium hotel and restaurant chains and establishments can get swamped with bookings and reservations. This increases a chance of a mistake that can cost a business a customer. Using conversational AI and automating the booking and confirmation processes will minimize the possibility of an error. It can also significantly reduce budget and allow the customer service team to actually take care of guests and their personal requests, should any arise.
IT
The most useful feature: FAQ management and authentication
IT support teams often come face to face with repetitive questions. It is especially true for those working with L1 tickets. For them, compiling a FAQ is a matter of saving time and delivering a better service.
Tech support can also use conversational AI to authenticate users even before they have to speak to them. It can cut the time a support consultant spends on each individual user and increase their efficiency.
E-Commerce
The most useful feature: order processing
Order processing, especially for big businesses, is a tedious endeavor. Order processing teams typically see a lot of churn — just like any teams with monotonous tasks. To reduce it and establish healthy working conditions and interesting tasks, e-commerce businesses can enhance their order processing with conversational AI that will help users place, track, and edit their orders. This will decrease the number of mistakes, reduce churn, and even increase CSAT.
Conversational AI vs. Human Customer Support — Is There Really a Battle?
In the era of technological advancement, whether technology will start taking human jobs is always a relevant question. That is why professionals tend to see their relationship with AI as a battle and not a cooperation.
AI, however advanced it gets, will never be able to fully substitute people in any industries based on human communication and cooperation. It will never be able to replicate empathy, caring attitude, and creativity. People, in turn, will not be able to reach their full potential without technology and the solutions it presents. The best we can do is embrace new technologies with open arms and do whatever we can to implement them into our everyday work in the most fitting and efficient way.
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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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