Artificial Intelligence in Customer Service
Digital agents can greatly improve the performance of customer contact centers (CCCs). They help make CCC operations more efficient and effective. By using AI technology, customers can quickly access the right information at the right time through self-service and digital agents. Some people may think companies are simply cutting costs by offering self-service and reducing staff. However, the truth is that companies are investing time and money to improve the customer experience. They’re helping their CCC employees handle more complex issues by providing them with the right information. Let’s explore how digital agents and AI can improve key performance indicators (KPIs) for CCC operations.
Forms of digital agents
There are several reasons to use digital agents in your CCC process:
- Virtual employee: Digital agents, or bots, can handle simple tasks that would normally be done by service employees or the web care team. For example, bots can manage first-line customer contacts and answer common FAQ questions.
- Support: A chatbot can suggest answers based on business rules or a customer’s past interactions, helping service agents. The agent only needs to approve or reject these suggestions.
- Work planner: Chatbots can gather necessary information, like email addresses or customer numbers, and prepare it ahead of time. This helps service agents work more efficiently when they take over the task.
The technological components of AI for the CCC
The components stand alone, are often offered separately and could be used independently from each other. In practice, however, an NLP will always be required for a chatbot. They can be further linked to the existing legacy, such as an existing CRM application. The chatbot is the central control for the digitized CCC. It steers the customer interaction process through intelligent digital dialogues using both natural language processing and machine learning.
Key performance indicators
How do you know if your customer service is living up to your customer expectations? The answer lies in KPI’s, or key performance indicators. There are plenty of different KPI’s you can use to measure customer service and the success of your business’ customer service strategy. Different ones will make more sense for different types of businesses. Below is a list of different KPI’s your business might consider using to measure customer service.
| KPI | Definition |
|---|---|
| Customer Satisfaction Score | The ratio between the number of satisfied customers and the total number of customers surveyed |
| Customer Churn Rate | The ratio between the increase or decrease in the number of customers in the month versus the number of customers at the beginning of the month |
| First Call Resolution | The percentage of incoming calls (tickets) that are processed in the first call |
| Transfer Rate | The percentage of incoming calls (tickets) that have been routed to another agent |
| Net Promotor Score | The chance that a customer will want to recommend your product or service |
| Conversion Rate | The percentage of (outbound) calls that led to the sale of a product or service |
| First Call Close | The percentage of outbound calls, which led to the sale of a product or service in the first call |
| Hit Rate | The percentage of outbound calls that are answered by a customer or prospect |
| Occupancy Rate | The time that an agent spent on calls versus the time between calls |
| Abandoned Call Ratio | The percentage of calls that have left the queue prematurely and have therefore no longer reached an agent |
Added value AI for CCC
Using AI in the CCC offers the following capabilities:
- 24/7 Availability: AI ensures round-the-clock availability with dynamic capacity („a chatbot never sleeps“).
- Predicting Service Demand: AI can predict customer needs before they even contact you, allowing for proactive service and reducing call volumes.
- Predicting Customer Behavior: AI can predict customer needs, purchasing behavior, and even potential churn.
- Personalization: AI provides a personalized experience by using customer data, such as previous purchases, current orders, payment behavior, and contact history. It can even gauge a customer’s emotional mood during a call.
- Smarter Customer Interaction: AI allows for faster and more accurate problem-solving by analyzing large volumes of data to provide knowledge and experience. This leads to quicker, more targeted customer interactions.
In essence, AI technology reduces wait times, improves service quality, and increases availability. Overall, it enhances the cost-effectiveness of the CCC.
Should I use AI in my customer service center?
Companies that have a customer service centre and want to work more efficiently or improve their customer satisfaction should definitely consider using digital agents in their business. Start with a small use case, like answering your FAQ via a bot. This way, you can easily monitor the success rate of digital agents. Another application is to have chatbots perform routine work. The chatbot is less visible to the customer but can take over a lot of unambiguous work at the back, which can make the service process considerably more efficient. An example is recognizing the customer’s intent to route messages automatically. Because the chatbot knows which employee is logged in and which employee is the right person to answer the question, the chatbot can prepare the work well in advance by assigning the messages to the right person.
Accessible to small and medium-sized businesses
For the sake of scalability, we often find AI technology in the cloud. An example of this is the Microsoft Azure stack. This stack offers the 3 AI components (as presented before) modular based on “pay-as-you-use”. This means that AI is no longer restricted to the larger segment, but has also become accessible to small and medium-sized businesses. The AI tooling in the cloud also enables you to quickly and without massive investments get involved into a proof of value (PoV), so the added value of AI for the KCC can be experienced in an initial pilot in less than a month.
Explore how AI-powered digital agents can boost efficiency, enhance customer satisfaction, and help you scale your operations. Get in touch with us today to discover how AI can transform your customer service operations and help you stay ahead of the competition!