The Pros and Cons of AI in Customer Support

Customer relationship management (CRM) is a crucial component of any successful enterprise.

In today's industry, more firms are utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) to automate and improve their CRM processes even further. Chatbots and AI-enabled communication, for example, have made round-the-clock conversations and customer service a reality.

What is Customer Service Automation?

Customer support automation (automated customer service) is a purpose-built procedure that tries to reduce or eliminate the need for human intervention while advising or assisting customer requests. Customer service entails recognizing a customer's wants and offering assistance that meets those needs in its most basic form.

Many businesses use customer service automation to increase the efficiency of their support agents. It tries to assist clients while requiring less actual human contact. It also protects organizations from heavy call volumes, expedites customer support processes, and reduces human error.

With the capabilities of today’s technology, businesses can easily access high-quality and reliable automation services, such as Robotic Process Automation or RPA solutions. With a digital workforce, you can focus on tasks that matter more as you let the automation solutions work on mundane and repetitive tasks.  

Furthermore, the cost-effectiveness of customer support automation entices businesses in the first place. Instead of allowing your staff to answer the phone one by one to attend to customer concerns with an additional idle time, your customer service center can take care of these tasks faster and more efficiently. 

Examples of Call Center Automation Technology

Automation is a broad idea with numerous applications in call centers and customer service. There are several examples of frequent contact center automation tool applications, including:

• Chatbots for customer self-service across social messaging, SMS and live chat.
• CRM process automation or agent help, such as auto-suggested knowledge content, automatic case creation, and following best actions.
• Monitoring social media and social case routing
• Conversational IVR
• Knowledge bases and Customer portals
• Agent-facing chatbots

The Pros of AI Customer Support

There are significant advantages of incorporating more advanced automation into your service toolkit:

1. Faster Response Times

Timeliness is the single most critical factor for an excellent customer service experience for t

three-quarters of consumers. The kind of speed that customers want is not practical for most businesses, at least not at scale. For example, customers anticipate responses in under a minute on live chat, SMS, and phone calls, and world-class customer response time criteria for email, Facebook, and Twitter are all 15 minutes.

Companies can finally meet, if not surpass, these expectations via automation. Email automation technology, for example, may analyze incoming emails and auto-generate responses for agents to evaluate and send in one-fifth the time.

2. Reduced Customer Friction

According to a survey, 72 percent of customers attribute their poor service experiences to explaining their problems to too many people. Automatically passing the correct information to the correct people reduces this risk. Additionally, chatbots and agent-assistance automation can improve first contact resolution to the point where fewer transfers are required in the first place, eliminating the need for customers to repeat their issue.

3. Expanded Service Hours and Channels

Customers now expect businesses to be available and responsive across far more channels than they did even a decade ago. Automation is the only method to handle additional interaction channels without increasing considerable personnel. Companies that offer Facebook Messenger customer service, for example, frequently use a chatbot as the front line, rising to a human agent only for issues that the chatbot cannot resolve.

4. Reduced Cost per Interaction

Self-service solutions such as chatbots, which may address issues before they reach a live agent, represent a significant cost-saving opportunity, in part because they eliminate the need for a phone call, diverting volume away from more expensive channels. An email automation solution can respond to incoming customer emails for $1 per email, compared to the $5–6 typical cost when a human person processes the same email.

Another option to explore is outsourced call center services. Call center automation allows you to redirect your most expensive (human) personnel to more meaningful work, giving them more time to solve more complex client concerns while also managing and improving the automation technologies.

5. Fewer Human Errors

Call center automation technology aids in the reduction of human errors. While humans are excellent at empathizing with others, they cannot match the accuracy and speed of automation for repetitive, time-consuming tasks such as entering data into a case or searching through thousands of knowledge base articles to find the relevant one.

When you use AI and machine learning in contact center automation systems, these technologies improve and become more accurate over time. This is due to their ability to learn from previous interactions and absorb new knowledge, altering their future behavior.

The Cons of AI Customer Support

There are numerous advantages of employing chatbots and artificial intelligence to supplement customer service, but this does not mean that it is without risks. Even if you're thinking about incorporating AI into your customer service network, you should be aware of the potential drawbacks.

1. Training time

Your AI software should be fluent in your clients' language so that they aren't frequently greeted with the annoying "I don't understand" response.

2. The potential risk of losing that "personal touch.

Customers may become irritated if they are unable to reach an actual person on the phone.

3. A higher cost upfront

Implementing and training an AI customer service will cost your business time, effort, and money at first.

5.There will always be scenarios in which AI is ineffective.

AI cannot address every customer service issue, whether a complex problem or a highly frustrated customer. That means that if you want to give the best possible customer service experience, you will still need to have the option to speak with a human at some point.

Human Versus AI

Listening to consumers and addressing their concerns is the only way for firms to retain clients and establish loyalty in any competitive business environment. While AI can quickly assemble knowledge, it struggles to replace or duplicate true human interactions. The application of artificial intelligence to assist support staff allows them to be more strategic and operate smarter.

Agents may focus on complex issues while chatbots and other AI-enabled technology route calls, assist clients, and collect mountains of data in the background. Customer journeys and the path from lead to customer acquisition will be enhanced, as will the overall customer experience.