Got a business? Then you’re probably up to your neck in customer support tickets.
But what if AI could take a lot of that workload on for you?
In this article, we’ll show you several ways AI in customer support can completely reshape the way you do business, and give both your agents and customers some much-needed freedom.
We’ll cover:
- How AI in customer support works
- Why you need AI in customer support
- Lindy — the best AI for customer support
Let’s get started.
How AI in customer support works
Artificial intelligence (AI) is changing the face of customer support by improving overall customer satisfaction and efficiency.
Here’s how it helps:
- Auto responses: Chatbots and virtual assistants can handle common inquiries, freeing up human agents for more complex tasks.
- Smart routing: These tools can analyze customer requests and route them to the most appropriate agent or department.
- Just-for-you recommendations: You can analyze customer data to offer tailored product recommendations and solutions.
- Your finger on the pulse: AI can gauge customer sentiment and provide insights to help agents respond appropriately.
- Do it yourself: You can use AI to power knowledge bases and help centers, enabling customers to find answers on their own.
- Reporting you can actually use: Leverage artificial intelligence to analyze customer interactions and provide valuable insights to improve service delivery.
- Before-you-know-it support: AI tools can predict potential issues and proactively reach out to customers before they become problems.
Why you need AI in customer support
When you use AI to handle simple, everyday customer interactions, your human agents are freed up to build personal connections and focus on the high-value, complex tickets that really require that bit of human know-how and finesse.
Basically, chatbots are the first rung of the ladder, and humans are there for escalation. So, when you do need to talk to a real person, they can give you their full attention.
Plus, chatbots just keep getting better at understanding (thanks to natural language processing) what customers need and delivering quick, accurate responses.
Always-on support
Your customers don't just contact you during business hours. But chatbots are there 24/7/365 so customers can get help whenever they need it.
Here’s how AI in customer support can help:
- Perma-online: AI customer support never sleeps, so your customers will never get an "out of office" message.
- Always get a reply: AI chatbots reply instantly, without any wait time. No more impatiently waiting on hold listening to elevator music.
- Scale when you need: AI systems can handle huge volumes of customer queries at once. Your customers will get quick responses, even during peak times.
Optimize response times
When customers reach out, they want answers, yesterday.
AI-centric customer service solutions can:
- Respond without missing a beat. AI is pretty much always there and can respond to inquiries immediately. This means customers don’t have to wait around until agents get their wakey-wakey on.
- You can talk to them like a real person. AI has been trained on years of customer conversations, so it can answer frequently asked questions right away without needing to transfer a customer to an agent.
- Pass the baton. For more complex issues, AI passes the customer to a live agent who has full context about the inquiry. The agent can step in seamlessly without the customer having to repeat themselves.
Personalize customer interactions
Chatbots and virtual agents are getting smarter, using AI to tailor responses to each customer.
Here's how AI makes interactions feel natural and personal:
- It “gets” you. AI scans details like name, location, and past interactions to understand the customer's needs. Also, based on what AI learns about each customer, it can craft messages in the appropriate tone and wording.
- First-name basis. The system can greet a repeat customer by name and pick up where the last conversation left off.
- Empathetic to a fault. If a customer seems frustrated, the system may take an empathetic and apologetic stance. For a regular customer, the tone can be friendly and casual.
Integrate with existing systems
When choosing an AI customer service solution, you’ll want one that can integrate easily with your other software. After all, your agents already have enough on their plates without having to toggle between 15 different systems!
Here’s how AI in customer support helps:
- Connect with your CRM. AI should sync contacts, conversations, and customer data with your CRM. No one wants to deal with duplicate records or lost information.
- Keep it seamless. AI should integrate with other tools your team already uses every day like chat, email, social media platforms, and knowledge bases. The last thing you need is another standalone system that creates even more work.
- The more integrations, the better. Look for AI that offers open APIs and pre-built integrations so it meshes with your tech stack right out of the box. Yes, your agents will thank you for it.
Improve accuracy with natural language processing (NLP)
Natural language processing allows AI systems to understand human language as it is actually spoken.
Here’s how AI helps you avoid rigid commands:
- Analyze patterns for intelligent interactions. NLP analyzes speech patterns, context, and semantics to determine a customer’s intent and provide the most relevant response.
- Lingo is where it lives. It understands complex sentences, figures of speech, and colloquialisms so customers don’t have to simplify their language.
- Ongoing improvement. NLP continues to learn from every interaction, improving its knowledge and ability to respond accurately over time.
Offer multilingual support
AI customer service solutions come with natural language processing capabilities that allow them to understand multiple languages.
This means your bot can:
- Chat with customers in their preferred language. No more “English only, please!”
- Provide a home-brewed experience for international users. Your French Canadian customers will feel like valued clients when your bot greets them in French.
- Scale to support many languages at once. While hiring multilingual human agents is difficult and expensive, AI systems can add new languages on the fly.
Monitor and analyze customer interactions
You need to keep close tabs on how customers engage with your AI. After all, you’re using it to make their lives easier, right?
Here’s how AI helps you keep your finger on the pulse:
- See what questions they ask most. Maybe you can make those answers even more helpful or prominent.
- Check how many times clients use certain responses. If some never get picked, consider tweaking or replacing them.
- Really know how long the average conversation lasts. Shorter is better. It means your AI is efficient. Look for ways to streamline longer convos.
Reduce operational costs
It’s no secret that customer support can be expensive. Between recruiting, training, and paying human agents, operational costs add up quickly.
Here are some simple ways AI in customer support can help cut costs:
- Not all questions need a human to answer them. Since an AI can handle basic inquiries like store hours, return policies, and sometimes even more complex queries, you free up humans — but you also don’t need as many customer support agents.
- No need to pay overtime or hire additional staff for overnight shifts. AI can field questions day and night, and you don’t need night owls to keep clients in the loop.
- Improve agent productivity. By handling everyday questions and requests, an AI makes agents more efficient. We’re talking less time wasted on repetitive tasks, allowing agents to resolve more issues in less time.
Level up agent productivity
Want your customer service team to actually have a life outside of work? This is one of the things AI was made for.
Let’s take a look:
- If it’s boring, an AI can do it. AI handles password resets, order statuses, and billing questions automatically. Your agents can work on the really complex cases that demand a more active role.
- Avoid burnout. With AI taking care of the little things, your team will be less burnt out and able to bring their best selves to every interaction.
- It allows agents to handle the really important stuff. When AI identifies an urgent or sensitive customer issue, it alerts an agent right away so they can step in. Your customers get quick, accurate responses and your agents get to do their thing when duty calls.
Maximize data security and privacy
Building trust is everything in customer service. To do that, you’ll need to keep those private details, well, private.
Here are three simple ways AI helps:
- Under lock and key. Customer data is encrypted during storage and transit to prevent unauthorized access.
- Keep things on the DL. Private information is scrubbed and replaced with generic data that can’t be traced back to individuals.
- Tighter security than Fort Knox. Only authorized personnel can access customer data, and their access is closely monitored.
Meet the best AI for customer support — Lindy
Lindy, the best AI in customer support, is your one-stop shop for elevating every facet of the customer journey.
With Lindy, you get:
- 3,000+ integrations: Connect Lindy with your favorite platforms like Zendesk, Salesforce, and Intercom, creating a unified hub for all customer interactions.
- Gets it all: Backed by cutting-edge Natural Language Processing (NLP), Lindy understands and responds to customer inquiries with exceptional precision.
- A team of collaborative Lindies: Harnessing the power of shared knowledge, multiple Lindy bots work together to continuously improve their collective intelligence and ability to resolve customer issues.
- Smart ticket triage: Lindy automatically prioritizes and routes tickets to the right agents, ensuring efficient and timely responses.
- 24/7 availability: Lindy is always on hand to answer questions, resolve issues, and provide support, even outside of business hours.
- Customer interactions feel personal: Lindy can tailor responses to individual customers based on their preferences and history, enhancing customer satisfaction.
- Proactive insights and recommendations: Lindy analyzes customer interactions and data to identify trends, anticipate needs, and suggest proactive solutions.
Summing up
AI in customer support works for you in so many ways.
It helps get a lock on routine stuff so your team can up their game and focus on absolutely mission-critical tickets.
Our recommendation? Give your support game a shot in the arm with AI.
