Improving customer experiences can help increase customer satisfaction and retention, which can positively impact a company’s bottom line. As customer experience becomes more of a competitive advantage for brands, firms must start building a strategy around CX. Here are some ways AI can help.
Research shows that customer-centric companies have seen a 60 percent boost in profit compared to companies that don’t put the customer first. In a CX-focused world, customers have to be at the forefront of every strategy. AI tools can help businesses connect with their customers throughout their buying journeys. AI can also provide insights into customer analytics, predicting user interactions so firms can develop engagement strategies for specific touchpoints along the way.
What is a Chatbot
Oracle defined the chatbot as a computer program that simulates and processes human conversation (either written or spoken), allowing humans to interact with digital devices as if they were communicating with a real person.
But chatbots do not only work through text but voice as well. And because chatbots simulate human conversation, they can not only reply to your questions but can also start a conversation all by themselves.
Chatbots Improve Customer Service
- 95% of consumers believe customer service is going to be the major beneficiary of chatbots2.
- Chatbots can open support tickets, answer questions, collect feedback, and point customers toward helpful resources quickly and efficiently.
- Bots are only as good as their programming but good bot interactions escalate to human agents if they get stuck in conversations.
- Chatbots can route customers to the right customer service agent, while providing the agent with useful customer information.
- Chatbots are predicted to handle 85% of customer service interactions by 20203.
- Setting up a chatbot platform is a cost-effective way to relieve human agents of simple, repetitive tasks, and increase efficiency .
- Chatbot automation could save businesses an estimated $8 billion a year5.
- Chatbots can monitor conversations in real-time and analyze the available data to suggest products to human agents. 47% of customers would buy items suggested from a chatbot4.
- Set rules for your chatbot to recognize keywords such as “buy” or “purchaase” to prioritize customers who may need help with a transaction.
- Chatbots can present dates and times for customers to schedule appointments and reservations that customers can book with a tap of a button.
Reduce Wait Time
Customers today are accustomed to instant gratification, and as a result, they hold businesses to the same standard of responsiveness. If you don’t use chatbots, your customer care response times may lag behind the competition. If you don’t have enough agents available to handle all the inquiries coming in, even simple questions might require a lot of time and effort to answer.
When chatbots are programmed to handle specific stages of a customer’s journey, they can significantly enhance response times. Customers are more likely to think favorably of your business if they have a shorter wait to get what they want.
Reduce wait time
Chatbots can reduce customers wait time and get them where they want to be quicker. Remember that cringe worthy on-hold music (especially the computerized ding-dong sounds, ugh!) – these could now be a thing of the past. The chatbot is always there. Which brings us to our next point …
The chatbot never sleeps an able to offer 24/7 customer support. A cost-efficient, yet potent way to provide basic support. Best practice chatbots are trained by using historical conversations, thereby can action some of the most common tasks such as amending an invoice, answering basic questions about account balances, similar to a real support rep. In some cases, the chatbot can even distinguish human emotions such as anger, confusion, fear and joy. If the bot detects that the customer is angry, it transfers the interaction to a human to take over, which will provide relief to said customer.