Using conversational AI can help companies address the most common customer inquiries while reducing the need for agents to answer repetitive questions. This allows employees to spend more time on individual and personalized customer service.
Customers can engage where they feel most comfortable. That could be on your website, over the phone, or through a mobile app.
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Increased Customer Satisfaction
In a world where instant answers and instant gratification have become the norm, customers want to know they will receive unmatched customer service. Providing them with that experience can be difficult when support teams spend so much time answering repetitive inquiries. Using conversational AI can free up time for agents to answer more complex questions.
What is conversational AI? AI-powered chatbots can handle common customer queries by deflecting or resolving them independently and providing accurate and consistent responses. They can also capture key customer information such as their name, email address, order details, and any previous questions or issues. This can be passed to an agent during a handoff so they can continue to provide personalized service.
Conversational AI is multilingual and can interact with customers in their preferred language. This helps eliminate the need for human translations and improves the customer experience by eliminating confusion or frustration. Additionally, if a customer is trying to track the status of their order, the chatbot can quickly direct them to the relevant page on your website.
AI-powered chatbots can also respond in your company’s brand voice and tone to make the experience seamless for customers. They can even add pizazz to their responses by using videos, carousels, or buttons to enhance customers’ experience. These interactive AI responses are available to customers 24/7, ensuring they will get an immediate response no matter when they contact the company.
Reduced Customer Service Costs
In an era where most people expect immediate answers, conversational AI can help businesses reduce customer service costs. For example, it can help agents save time by automatically answering simple questions like “How do I check my order status” or “What are the delivery times?”
Additionally, when customers call in with more complicated issues, the chatbot can route the request to a human agent. This allows humans to focus on helping those needing their attention and ensures that more pressing calls are handled first.
Customers often get frustrated when they are forced to wait on hold. Nearly three-quarters of customers refuse to stay on the phone for over a minute, and over half don’t even want to be placed on hold. By using conversational AI to answer basic questions, companies can help reduce customer frustration and cut phone support costs.
In addition to reducing customer service costs, conversational AI can automate your business’s repetitive tasks. This can free up valuable time for agents to spend on more complex cases, leading to higher customer satisfaction and retention rates. Additionally, use speech-to-text tools to convert text into natural-sounding speech. These tools can improve accessibility for customers with disabilities and make your website more accessible to people who rely on assistive technologies.
Increased Productivity
Using conversational AI to handle repetitive and common customer inquiries, like checking account balances, increases productivity. This allows employees to focus on complex customer issues and improve customer service.
With NLP, these virtual assistants can decipher the customer’s question and identify the primary intent of the request to find a quick solution. Then, it compares the information to a database of potential, pre-formulated solutions and quickly submits the correct response. This allows the customer to complete their task without waiting for an agent.
Conversational AI chatbots can also automate marketing and sales processes and internal collaboration. For example, a chatbot can schedule meetings and demos with interested customers and provide automated follow-up emails. It can also be programmed to observe a website visitor’s activity and recommend products or services that the visitor may like.
A savvy chatbot can also help manage loyalty programs by automatically sending thank you messages, updating rewards balances, sending sale reminders or price drop notifications, and even offering coupon codes. This enables brands to deliver personalized, high-value offers that encourage repeat purchases and build brand recognition. And a savvy bot can even collect and analyze customer feedback for continuous improvement. This data can be incorporated into a business’s CRM system for future analysis and optimization.
Increased Sales
As the conversational AI market grows, business owners find that their AI chatbots help them increase sales. They do this by automating tasks that would otherwise require employees to spend time doing, reducing their workload and allowing them to focus on other duties.
Virtual assistants offer a wide range of assistance to customers, helping them with tasks like appointment booking and product/service inquiries. Additionally, they assist businesses in delivering prompt customer service, eliminating the need for customers to make repeat contact for the same issue.
They can also provide information and guidance to human employees to handle more complex customer requests. This can reduce employee frustration and improve productivity levels. Lastly, conversational AI can provide automated feedback on product or customer experience. This can be delivered via a survey or in-app message and can help businesses gain valuable insights that can improve their products, services, or customer support strategies.
Another benefit of conversational AI is its 24/7 availability. This can ensure that all customer inquiries are handled promptly, regardless of the time of day. It can also be scalable, meaning that companies can increase or decrease their capabilities depending on demand, avoiding the need for additional human agents and lowering operating costs.