Delivering customer satisfaction with Artificial Intelligence

Suvish Viswanathan at Zoho Europe explains how AI can help businesses solve the customer service crisis

 

Customer service is mission critical for all businesses. A happy customer base goes hand in hand with business success, with customers more likely to purchase a company’s products or services. In today’s highly competitive and commoditised markets, customer service is often the key differentiator.

 

Many organisations are turning to investment and innovation in the customer service space to help ensure their customers are happy - and crucially, remain happy. This includes leveraging the latest technology to provide fast and effective responses to basic customer requests while freeing up staff to carry out urgent, higher-level customer service.

 

High quality customer service is important for attracting new customers, but is even more valuable when it comes to retaining customers. Repeat customers are 300 per cent more likely to spend with the same brand, as well as becoming advocates, spreading word of mouth recommendations about the business.

 

Customer complaints at an all-time high

In recent years, business operations and internal infrastructures have changed to adapt to the pandemic, supply chain issues, inflation, and staffing issues, but many have failed to adapt in the right way. This has led to a dip in customer service standards and a failure to meet expectations.

 

Recent research from the Institute of Customer Service (ICS), titled the ‘UK Customer Satisfaction Index’, revealed that customer service complaints have hit an all-time high, with businesses struggling to cope with staff shortages and global supply issues.

 

The research highlighted that 17.3 per cent of UK customers are experiencing an issue with products or services, the highest percentage since the ICS began monitoring in 2008.

 

This has seen UK firms collectively spending an estimated £9.24 billion each month on worker hours to deal with customer complaints.

 

Bolstering customer service is the first area businesses should look to address in order to solve these issues. Transparency and ‘always-on’ communication services will go a long way to ensure that disgruntled customers are at least being answered so they know their concerns are being addressed – this makes it likely that they will be more forgiving and understanding when issues do arise.

 

AI is one obvious solution

One obvious improvement businesses can make to customer service systems is to use artificial intelligence (AI) through an AI-powered chatbot.

 

Managing customer requests and complaints manually takes up a lot of time, as evidenced by the ICS, but a lot of enquiries can be answered by a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page or by a simple Google search.

 

Using an AI-powered chatbot, simple requests can be quickly and effectively managed by scanning a pre-existing knowledge base, in many cases an FAQ page, and providing an instant response to the customer.

 

These customer requests can be prioritised and streamlined using machine learning to ensure the most time sensitive requests are dealt with first, and requests that require human intervention, can be prioritised and passed on to the relevant member of staff.

 

This is even more effective during today’s era of hybrid working. Using the right technology enables teams to operate seamlessly, regardless of location, and prevents knowledge silos from developing in spite of distributed workforces. This can enable workers to more effectively manage their workloads and deliver superior customer service.

 

By automating the process using a chatbot, thousands of hours a year can be saved for staff, allowing them to concentrate on high-level, urgent customer service filtered by the chatbot, improving both high and low level interactions with customers.

 

Implementing AI-powered customer service

While leveraging an AI-powered chatbot is one obvious solution, implementing this can be a more complicated task. It can require staff with high technological proficiency and understanding of advanced coding and machine learning. This is a talent pool many organisations do not have access to.

 

However, there are solutions which make it accessible for all. Implementing a low-code, or even no-code, chatbot solution is an optimal way for businesses and customers to reap the benefits of AI-powered chatbots at an enterprise scale.

 

Low-code and no-code solutions can allow non-AI specialists to create chatbot systems using pre-defined components in a ‘drag and drop’ style, without requiring an IT team to be involved. Organisations should look to change the perception that technology can only be managed by IT teams.

 

This can also free up IT teams who are increasingly required for strategic projects which contribute towards the growth and success of the company.

 

In the new post-pandemic climate, businesses still need to learn how to operate at maximum efficiency. AI-enabled tools, such as chatbots, and other business applications which tightly integrate, are key to this effort.

 

Customer service is a huge differentiator in today’s increasingly competitive market, and it is time businesses made use of all the tools in their arsenal, including AI, to improve their customer experience.

 

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Suvish Viswanathan is a Technology Evangelist at Zoho Europe

 

Main image courtesy of iStockPhoto.com