7 Ways Businesses Can Use AI in Customer Service

Providing exceptional customer service is crucial to retaining customers. However, customer expectations are higher than ever before, as customers want faster service without any drop in quality. Interestingly, utilising AI in customer service has the potential to improve the overall customer experience.

The question is: how can you use AI to enhance your customer service?

This article will answer this question. It’ll start by outlining how AI can improve customer service, then dive into specific use cases for AI customer service and the factors to consider when implementing AI in customer support service.

How AI can improve your customer service

AI can improve your customer service in many ways. These include:

1. Improve agent efficiency and productivity

AI can boost the productivity of customer service agents, helping them provide faster issue resolution and efficient support that contribute to an improved customer experience.

Customer service AI does this by simplifying and optimising workflows. You can use AI to automate repetitive customer service tasks, reducing your agents’ workload and allowing them to focus on more value-added tasks.

AI-powered chatbots can handle simple customer inquiries, providing instant responses and solutions. AI systems can streamline processes like information retrieval during customer service interactions, helping your agents navigate their tasks more efficiently.

2. Make proactive recommendations to customers

Customer service AI algorithms can analyse customer data and behaviour on your site to determine what customers are really interested in and use this information to offer personalised product or service recommendations.

3. Provide 24/7 service for customers

Implementing AI-powered chatbots or virtual assistants helps you offer 24/7 customer service even when your support agents are offline.

AI-powered chatbots do not need a break or sleep. They can handle routine queries and frequently asked questions around the clock. Armed with Natural Language Processing (NLP), these systems can understand natural language to grasp the context and meaning behind customer queries to provide accurate responses as human customer service agents would.

4. Deliver personalised support

Customer support AI can analyse customer data to personalise interactions. The AI systems can help customer service teams understand individuals’ preferences and needs, equipping them to provide more tailored solutions.

You may also set up AI-powered bots to congratulate customers on their special days, address them by their names and preferred pronouns, and recommend products based on their behaviour on your site or purchase history.

5. Create powerful, intelligent workflows

By automating tasks, AI will help you create workflows that provide faster and more efficient support for customers.

For example, AI can analyse incoming calls and route them to the most appropriate customer service agent based on their skill and expertise. That reduces wait time and ensures customers get the best service as they are routed to the agent best suited to handle their case.

6. Offer multilingual support

When you offer products and services in territories with different languages, AI for customer service can help you offer multilingual support.

NLP allows AI systems to engage in conversations and provide assistance in different languages. AI-powered translation services can also automatically translate text from one language to another, helping your support agent communicate in real time with customers using another language.

7. Save agents’ time by automatically identifying customer intent

AI technologies, particularly NLP and machine learning, can analyse customer queries and messages to identify their intent. That is followed by automatically categorising support tickets based on their nature. This reduces the need for manual sorting, saving agents’ time.

AI can use identified intent to provide your customer service team with auto-suggestions for responses, accelerating response time.

Use cases for AI in customer service

Some of the best ways to use AI in customer support service include:

1. Self-service options

AI-powered self-service resources empower customers to find information and resolve queries themselves without directly contacting your customer service team.

Use AI algorithms to create FAQs and knowledge bases to help customers access relevant information 24/7.

2. Sentiment analysis

You can use AI to analyse customer feedback to determine the sentiment associated with their experience (whether positive, negative, or neutral).

Accurately identifying customer sentiment in textual data helps AI-powered bots respond appropriately. This also helps you gauge overall customer satisfaction and pinpoint areas for improvement.

3. Request routing and prioritisation

You can use AI to manage incoming customer requests effectively. The algorithms can analyse queries to understand their nature and assign them to the right agent for handling based on this.

The AI system can also use specific keywords to assess their urgency and severity. This helps in prioritising requests so that critical or time-sensitive issues can receive prompt attention.

4. Personalised support

A common use of AI for customer service is to tailor customer support experiences based on individual preferences. AI can analyse customer data to understand individual customer’s unique requirements to improve customer interactions.

You can also use AI-powered predictive analytics to anticipate customer needs and offer better service.

5. Omnichannel support

AI technologies unify customer interactions and ensure consistency across different communication channels (email, chat, social media, phone, and more).

Implement AI into your different customer service channels to ensure consistent responses. Use AI to aggregate and analyse customer data from different communication channels to create a unified customer profile for a comprehensive understanding of customer behaviour.

6. Voice analysis

If you offer telephone support, AI can use AI-powered voice analysis (aka speech analytics) to enhance the experience for customers.

AI can analyse the tone and sentiment of a customer’s voice in real-time or retrospectively. This helps your agents understand the emotional state of the customers to address concerns effectively.

7. Multilingual support

If you run a global business, providing multilingual support is essential and AI can help you deliver the best customer service. The tool can generate content in different languages, detect your customer’s language, and translate it for your customer service representative.

Examples of successful AI chatbot implementation in customer service

When aiming to set up an AI-powered customer service, you can draw inspiration from real-life companies that have successfully used AI to enhance their customer service. These include:

Netflix

Netflix uses machine learning to recommend content for its viewers. The streaming giant has a sophisticated AI-powered recommendation that works in different ways.

One is content-based filtering, which analyses the characteristics of TV shows and movies a user has watched to recommend similar content. Another is behavioural data analysis, which recommends content based on different user behaviours such as search queries, pause and rewind actions, etc.

Amazon

Amazon has implemented various AI technologies in its customer service. A standout example is its use of AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants. These tools help Amazon to provide immediate responses to customer queries. The platform also seamlessly transitions from automated responses to human agents.

In addition, the e-commerce giant uses AI to provide personalised product recommendations based on customers’ browsing history and purchase patterns.

Bank of America

Bank of America (BoA) has used customer service AI in various ways.

Virtually everyone is familiar with the bank’s AI assistant Erica, a chatbot that provides customers with instant support and answers common queries like account information.

BoA also uses AI algorithms for fraud detection. The models analyse transaction patterns to detect anomalies that may indicate fraudulent activity, thereby protecting customers from unauthorised transactions.

Factors to consider when implementing AI customer service

When implementing AI customer service, you need to consider certain factors to ensure successful implementation and positive outcomes. These factors include:

Whether the customer service AI will prioritise customer needs and experiences
Specific use cases and scenarios where AI can provide the most value.
Security of customer data and compliance with data protection regulations.
Integration with existing customer service systems, databases, and CRM platforms.
The ability of the AI system to accommodate growth in customer interactions.
Training required for customer service agents to use the AI system.
Whether the interface is intuitive for both customers interacting with the AI-powered applications and agents using the system to perform tasks.

The bottom line

No matter the size of your business, AI can enhance your customer service and boost customer satisfaction. Don’t know where to start? Outsource your customer service and focus on your core business activities. Letting professionals handle your customer service ensures everything runs smoothly. This is where Pexly comes in!

Pexly offers comprehensive customer support services that help you improve your relationship with your customers and increase your retention and conversions. This includes customer care, help desk, eCommerce support, sales and marketing support, tech support, and virtual assistant services.

Ready to add AI to your customer service and boost your customer experience? Get a Quote and let Pexly help you build AI-powered customer service!