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How AI-Powered Chatbots are Redefining Customer Support

We live in the 21st century where technologies are reshaping the service standards. Customer service has been redefined with AI-driven chatbots taking over the industry offering astounding answering service.

The traditional telephone answering service was all about human agents answering incoming calls 24X7. However, in today’s tech-savvy era, the monotonous function of repetitive answering to similar queries have been automated with chatbots. 

AI-driven bots are taking customer service to new dimensions. Call answering is no more limited to answering customers over calls specifically.

However, with the changing ways of customers connecting to businesses, the answering responsibilities are modified too.

AI-powered bots are using Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning to conduct online chats with customers. The automated software uses text to speech to answer customers instantly analysing the query.

With AI-bot at assistance, companies get to contact customers instantly unlike a human agent who got puzzled and frustrated in multiple calls at once.

Not only is this, but with a bot, there is no threat of call abandonment, and 24X7-customer support is available too.

AI Chatbots Redefining Customer Support

AI-assisted customer support has gained momentum with companies witnessing the advantages that AI-bot comes with.

Do you wish to integrate AI service to your customer support functions? Are you still not convinced with the perks? Check out the ways AI chatbots benefit customer support:

1. 24X7 Availability for Telephone Answering Service

Serving customer concerns 24X7 used to be a dream before. However, with the introduction of AI-driven technologies, 24X7 customer support is a reality. 

With bots on-board, customer queries can be answered anytime. Moreover, the bots do not get frustrated answering similar queries all day, unlike human agents who tended to reply to customers inappropriately after handling multiple calls.

Furthermore, bots do not need holidays, nor breaks, nor are inaccurate in answers, thus tackling monotonous answering responsibilities is easy for them.

Not only is this, but with bots, there is no threat of attrition, which is why companies can save their operational costs earlier spent on hiring and training agents.

The advantage of being always available to the customers is what drives businesses to have a bot on-board.

Also Read: The Power Of Chatbots: Eliminating ER Bottlenecks & Increasing Patient Satisfaction

2. No to Errors!

Working with human agents, there are times when mistakes tend to dissatisfy customers. Any wrong interpretation or incorrect data can lead to customer dissatisfaction, however, this is not a concern with a bot.

Chatbots analyse customer-business interactions well and land up with correct data management. Thus, reliability concerns are not a threat issue with bots.

As compared to human agents, training a bot is easier. Additionally, programming and keeping the bots updated with all technological tools is much easier than making agents understand the same. Bots do not forget or misinterpret any information fed in it, thus they do not initiate any error. 

Bots are programmed to take ‘pre-emptive’ actions, unlike humans who tend to make errors and have mood changes due to which customer experiences with a manual agent is not the same as with a bot. 

With the help of bots handling call answering service, businesses get a virtual assistant to answer calls by analysing customers’ voice messages.

Likewise, bots answer customers well over text messages using text-to-speech stimulation, and analyses customer interactions too to draw insights to help service providers ensure service efficiency later. 

Source – https://landbot.io/

Above graph depicts that customers are using messaging platforms to reach vendors, thus instant answering with bots can uplift brand image.

Also Read: Chatbots: The Future of Business Communications

3. In Budget Answering Service

Traditional answering service requires a team of experts on-board to answer customer inquiries 24X7. However, with bots, there is no need for a team of professionals, as bots handle multiple inquiries at the same time without any hassle.

Chatbots are never overloaded and they understand customer inquiries to deliver an acceptable resolution. Chatbots make sure that the customers do not leave having an unsatisfactory experience.

Without bots, call centres have to hire a team of agents in-house and have to look after their training and other necessities for optimum service performance. Attrition is again a thing to worry with manual service handling, however, companies can avoid the same with bots. 

Rather than investing in hiring and training, companies can integrate AI-driven bots and save a lot. Maintenance cost is low with automated services, thus it is better to have virtual agents that answer customers accurately and intelligently.

4. The Advantage of Referrals

Telephone answering service never received personalization. Nevertheless, with an AI-bot helping the business, personalized services are possible. 

How?

Well, AI interprets customer requirements by analysing their history. Accessing the customers’ buying patterns and accessing their chats on likes and dislikes, bots help businesses know what the customer looks for. This way influencing the customers’ interest and boosting business sales becomes easier.

Call answering service aims to augment customer satisfaction and with bots analysing customer needs, it is easy to reach the clients with what they want.

Opening the upselling and cross-selling prospects, bots help to understand customers better and save time that was earlier wasted in analysing customer needs manually. 

Customers are the business advocates, thus any threat to their satisfaction can bring detrimental effects to business health.

This is why leveraging AI-driven features help to simplify monotonous functions and bring in more sales using customer requirement referrals. 

Also Read: How to Use AI to Maximize Customer Acquisition

5. Bots can Access Multiple Channels 

Omnichannel experience is what every customer wants today. Call answering service augments when an AI-driven bot helps to access multiple channels 24X7.

Channels like emails and phones to reach customers have been used for ages, however, bots use social mediums, messaging applications, websites, etc. to reach customers better. 

Source – https://landbot.io/

When a service provider thinks of outsourcing its customer support, it looks for a BPO company that uses modern technologies to help reach customers on varied platforms.

This is the reason BPOs need to integrate chatbot surveillance, as it reaches customers on all channels instantly leaving no chance for customer dissatisfaction. 

Since customers today are available on varied platforms, thus taking care of efficient answering services on all platforms is indispensable.

Bots use modern channels to reach customers on time, thus avoiding automated solutions is not a fair decision. To keep an eye that loyal partners do not switch to competitors, leveraging the latest technologies is central.  

With multiple channel access by bots, customers tend to get answers to their queries instantly and the hassle of long call queues is reduced too.

Therefore, why avoiding bots and using traditional answering service when automation can assist you better!

Also Read: Chatbots Vs Humans: Will Bots Take Over Customer Service?

6. AI-Powered Bots will Get Smarter

AI-Powered Bot

BPO companies working with manual agents have to keep an eye on several monotonous functions physically. Manual task performance needs a vigilant manager to be on her/his topes 24X7 to make sure that there is no threat to customer satisfaction. 

However, bots are intelligent virtual agents that learn from customer interactions continuously and advance their answering systems accordingly.

Bots collect customer information and draw insights from the same to simplify answers to the customers better in the future.

AI bots learn new things with every passing year and move towards getting smarter. With such automated systems, BPOs can save the cost of repetitive hiring and training and can simplify many monotonous tasks. 

Ultimately, bots help to benefit customers in avoiding them to experience stressful manual chores. The best part is that with instant responsiveness to customer queries, bots help companies earn a remarkable brand image.

Ending Statement

It is essential to debunk the myth that AI bots have been introduced to replace humans. Chatbots only aim at simplifying monotonous customer support functions.

Handling customer support service manually, service performance is disrupted by high call volumes leading to call abandonment and deteriorated brand name. 

AI-driven bots bring several advantages wherein they help companies answer repetitive calls on the agents’ behalf. The non-technical calls that do not require human intervention are answered by bots.

If you wish to simplify monotonous telephone answering service, AI-powered bots can be your guardian angel. 

With instant answering to the customers, to making customer support service available 24X7, bots help service-providing companies build a name in the market. 

As per a report in 2018, the bot market was worth $1.274 billion and it is said to reach $7.5 billion by 2024. Thus, avoiding bot integration is not a good idea.

As 60% of the customers have had a happy experience with a bot, so why struggling with manual hassling answering service when a bot can simplify much of the answering responsibilities for you!

1 comment

Himanshu Mehra December 9, 2020 at 1:26 pm

Customer support is probably the most important and critical element in business growth. The satisfaction of the customer is the key part of any business and probably AI is redefining customer support.

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