It seems like every day there’s a new headline describing how artificial intelligence (AI) is going to take over the world. There are AI chatbots that can take over customer service, customers ordering products right on their phone, AI traffic lights that can keep us all safer on the road, and automated call centers spearheaded by bots with insanely accurate voice recognition software.
So what does this have to do with your business? How has it impacted it? And why should you care? It may be time to let go of some of the control you’re used to having in your day-to-day business operations and explore how these automated systems could help improve what you already offer.
Artificial Intelligence For Customer Service
With AI, the options are virtually limitless. Your company can use AI to improve customer service, speed up the product development process, and increase the precision of inventory management. US companies lose $75 billion annually as a result of bad customer service.
A little bit of artificial intelligence can go a long way. It’s up to you how much you want to implement into your business.
Start by looking at the processes that could be automated using AI and see how it might benefit you, then take the next step by doing further research on how to actually implement it into your system. A great first step is joining a community of like-minded entrepreneurs who are exploring this technology with you.
Benefits Of Artificial Intelligence For Customer Service
As more and more businesses adopt AI-powered customer service agents, it’s important to consider the effect this will have on the customer experience. With machine learning, these agents will be able to understand natural language processing, making the customer experience more efficient and streamlined.
However, rather than completely replacing them, it’s crucial to make sure that customer service representatives are taught to use this technology in a way that benefits the consumer. By 2020, eight out of ten firms will have already adopted AI as a customer service solution or have plans to do so.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionising customer service interactions and customer satisfaction. By automating simple tasks and providing real-time answers to customer queries, AI is helping organisations resolve customer queries faster and improve customer satisfaction.
1. Save Time And Resources
Automating customer service can not only save money, it can save your employees time. Instead of spending hours on the phone or sending out a dozen emails, you can let technology help respond to simple questions. That way, you get more time with customers who are actually ready to purchase something from you.
Once your customers know that AI is taking over the basic requests and helping steer them towards a human for the more complicated issues, they’ll be more willing to interact with it as well. The AI system doesn’t need coffee breaks or sick days! So use this as an opportunity to hire new employees as needed so that you can handle more incoming leads.
2. More Effective Customer Service
Artificial Intelligence can help you truly become a tech company that cares about its customers. You can talk to machines and let them learn what you say in context. That’s something that humans do naturally, but computers really struggle with.
When it does make a mistake, you can quickly put it back on track and make sure things are as seamless for your customers as possible. This kind of enhanced customer service is going to be more effective than the normal manual ones.
3. Get Accurate Inventory Management
By 2020, 85% of customer service contacts will be handled by AI bots. AI can make it easier for you to manage your inventory. Just consider it. An AI system already does some inventory checks for you.
It’s simply a matter of setting up the rest of your company’s AI systems to tie into that and make sure the other items are accounted for. Then all you have to do is fill in that space with items, and the system takes care of it all from there on out.
If you have an automated warehouse or fulfillment system, that’s even better, because you can just rest assured knowing the system is monitoring the goods and getting them out to the customers that have already made purchases.
4. Fair Pricing For Customers
Using AI to create a customer service chatbot can help you get your pricing structure into a fair and balanced position for all of your customers. Of course, this will vary based on what sort of products you sell.
But if your business has roughly similar customers with roughly similar needs, then it should be easy to make pricing more fair with AI. This can make sure that you’re not leaving anyone out, which is a great way to protect your customer base and grow your business.
5. Faster Sales And Problem Solving
Once you’ve got the basics of AI in place, your sales will go up. Customers will be able to get all of their questions answered faster with AI taking care of basic requests. They’ll be more likely to purchase more products with the quick service and lower prices you’re offering them.
And once they start purchasing from you, they’ll feel like they can call in regularly if they want to ask more questions or if any problems come up. This is great, because customers who feel like they can get in touch with you will be more likely to stick around.
6. More Accurate Data Collection
AI helps collect data more efficiently. When you have a customer service chatbot in place, or you hire a team of customer service representatives to work for your company and monitor what’s going on, you’re much more likely to get accurate information from your customers.
That’s because the leads will come in a steady stream and not just when someone is ready to make that big purchase. You can do some analysis on it all to find out how many of your leads are turning into customers and how many are responding positively to your sales team. You can even go back and look at the data to see if there are any trends you’ve missed in the past. This will help you know where to make changes later on.
7. More Product Development
You can use AI to create new products more efficiently as well. It’s not something that’s used with every business, but it is a very useful tool for companies that need to stay on top of their game and take a lot of feedback from customers into account when setting up new products and features.
Imagine having a customer service chatbot that asks customers which features they like best after they try out a new product, or which ones they would like to see less of.
Risks Of Artificial Intelligence For Customer Service
The customer self service model is gaining popularity as a way to reduce customer service costs. A customer service representative can still be available to answer questions, but the customer service team can be smaller.
AI for customer service can also automate straightforward activities. Business productivity is expected to grow by up to 40% by 2035 thanks to AI technologies.
Customer feedback is critical to the success of any business, and customer support agents play a vital role in ensuring positive customer interactions. However, with the advent of AI technology, many businesses are now turning to automated customer support solutions that do not require human agents.
While these solutions may be more cost-effective in the long run, they can often lack the personal touch that is so important to maintaining happy customers.
1. Untrained AI Speech
One big risk of using AI for customer service is that it doesn’t fully understand its customers. While the system is intended to respond to specific questions and not general ones, there could be misunderstandings on the part of the team that created it.
Many business owners are already turning to chatbots in order to get their customer service taken care of more efficiently, but these chatbots often make mistakes. This can be a serious problem if they’re also used as live agents.
One common mistake with chatbots is making them speak in a way that isn’t natural and takes the conversation off topic. This can lead to customers getting confused or frustrated by the AI and not using it again.
2. Leaky Chatbots
If you’re using your chatbot to handle customer service, you have to make sure that the AI is only dealing with customers who are actually ready to buy something. Consider how many people are calling in about a minor issue and wasting your team’s time.
If your chatbot is employed as an agent for anyone who needs assistance, you won’t be able to accomplish that. By 2020, businesses that are driven by insights will rob their less informed competitors of $1.2 trillion annually.
Also, there’s a small chance that a leak could occur on a chatbot tool when it handles customer communication with an agent.
This is a serious issue because it can lead to customers getting information that they wouldn’t be able to get otherwise. If they were talking to an agent, they wouldn’t necessarily know if the chatbot was leaking information to them.
3. Flawed Agent AI Versions
When you use AI for customer service, there could be some flaws in the system that affect how you get customer service in the first place. One of the biggest issues with using AI for a customer service agent is that you might need to setup a live agent at some point in time.
If this is the case, the agent could be confused by how the AI is handling things. While AI could be more efficient than a live agent, it all comes down to how you’re using it, and you might end up with some AI systems that are still inefficient for your company.
4. Difficult To Set Up
Another issue with using AI for customer service is that it can be difficult to set up in the first place. This is especially true if it’s not something that your company has worked with before or if you don’t have a good team of people working on setting things up right now.
You’ll need to either hire a third party or make sure that your employees take the time to learn how to use it properly. You can do this on your own or hire someone who has experience in setting up AI for customer service.
5. Lack Of Support
AI is meant to help customers with their problems while they’re using your business, but you might run into the issue where there’s no one around to help those customers when they have an issue while talking with your chatbot.
You might have employees who are around during certain times of the day but not others. This could lead to a problem for customers who need help but can’t get it.
6. AI Interactivity
If you’re working with AI, there might be the issue that your customers can’t interact with it in the same way they would with a live chat agent.
Some businesses have found success using AI to do things such as schedule and set appointments, but this isn’t necessarily true for every business model. You might need a live chat service if you want your customers to feel like they have full control over their experience.
7. AI Skillset
67% of consumers anticipate seeing or using messaging apps while interacting with a business. You can employ AI services to create a chatbot, but you might need to engage a contractor who collaborates with them.
While working with AI can be a great idea for certain businesses, it is usually more effective if your company has someone on the team who understands how to use it.
Final Note
As more AI services come out, you’ll be able to get a better understanding of what they can do for your business and what their limitations are. One thing that you need to keep in mind is that while the AI tools are great and very useful in their own ways, they’re not necessarily going to replace all of your human staff.
You need someone onsite who knows how to use them because they aren’t always going to work perfectly the first time that you use them.