Artificial intelligence (AI) isn’t just for tech gurus and cyber geeks. It’s becoming a game-changer for time-crunched small business owners who wear many hats, including customer support superstars.
While great customer service starts with a well-constructed business website, it's reinforced by other on-site features, like a chatbot. And once your website is launched, AI can help you manage just about every customer service-related task by automating, managing and streamlining how you deal with customer inquiries and issues. Here are the 10 key benefits of using AI in customer service.
10 ways AI is improving customer service
01. Offers 24/7 support
AI-enabled chatbots are designed to interact with your customers using natural language processing (NLP), which is a type of artificial intelligence that allows machines to understand human language. Chatbots are always on, so they can respond to customer questions 24/7.
They’re versatile and available across all customer touchpoints including your website, mobile app and on social media.
If you’ve just launched or you’re about to start a business, AI chat tools can be incredibly valuable. They help establish strong customer relationships, increase sales and improve brand awareness round the clock.
02. Reduces handle and wait times
As a small business owner, you may struggle with keeping customers on hold too long or getting back to people quickly. Conversational AI tools can significantly reduce the time your customers spend waiting for help, resulting in immediate response times. They can play a crucial role in resolving disputes or queries since they give customers real-time answers to natural-language queries.
This helps improve “case deflection” which is when a customer can resolve a case on their own, deflecting it away from a human service rep (or from you, the business owner). It's like having an extra pair of hands to manage customer queries effectively and promptly.
Chatbots can also help you streamline your customer service approach—the process of resolving disputes or queries. Integrating chatbots into your workflow helps you provide better service overall. It’s not a replacement for human-driven service, but it’s a way to augment the processes you already have in place.
03. Handles multilingual queries
Multilingual AI-powered customer service tools can chat with customers in multiple languages. They work by using sophisticated NLP engines to identify the language or automatically detecting a customer's default browser language.
Apps like Tidio, available in the Wix App Market, are easy to connect to small business apps like MailChimp and Slack, or directly to your website. Having multilingual capabilities helps you expand into new territories and support various languages without hiring a large, multilingual support team.
Keep in mind that language is just one aspect of culture. Multilingual chatbots are a good stop-gap when you need to support customers who speak different languages, but if you truly want to serve a global audience, then cultural alignment is crucial. Some chatbot platforms like Engati consider things like dialects, currencies and text direction when trained.
04. Improves customer retention
Customer retention is closely linked to good customer service. According to Statista, 70% of U.S. consumers expect a same-day response for customer service issues and 62% say a response within one to three days is acceptable.
AI can help foster higher customer retention rates because it responds immediately with accurate information. This is particularly important when something goes wrong. According to a Zendesk survey, 77% of customers surveyed said they’re more loyal to businesses that provide a good experience after they experience an issue.
Resolving issues quickly is a key ingredient of good customer experience. This can be challenging if you’re figuring out how to run a business on a tight budget. Incorporating chatbots into your customer service approach is a cost-effective way to improve both customer experience and retention.
05. Analyzes customer data
AI customer service tools have the ability to collect a treasure trove of customer data. They chat with customers, learning about their likes, dislikes and problems, so they can help you solve small business challenges and make smarter decisions. If a bunch of customers are asking the same question, or frequently expressing anger, confusion or frustration, it could be a sign that something's not clear and needs fixing.
Since chatbots can give you a peek into what customers really want, they have the potential to help you customize your offerings and business approach based on what your customers are saying. For example, if you’re a clothing retailer frequently seeing the query “Do you have plus sizes?” you can gather that there is demand for additional sizing in your target market.
Related reading: Where are we in the AI revolution?
06. Reduces overhead costs
We’ve already touched on how AI customer service tools can save you money by providing multilingual chat support and improving customer retention. But there are a few other ways that they can contribute to reducing overhead costs.
The main one is that they eliminate the need for a full-time customer support team. Chatbots are always at the ready when a customer has an issue. They can defer the need for a human agent to instantly respond and can redirect customers to content on your website that answers their question.
Common questions about return policies, shipping speed and product availability can all be answered by AI. To this end, it’s important to have the answers to common questions available on your website as a frequently asked questions (FAQs) page, in detailed blog posts and as easy-to-find information on product and service pages. And, again, unlike human agents, chatbots can provide consistent support around the clock.
07. Anticipates customer needs
Since chatbots can process and retain customer data, it can use predictive analytics to anticipate customer needs and provide faster solutions. Predictive analytics use historical data combined with machine learning algorithms to forecast outcomes and trends.
Using predictive analytics might, for example, proactively provide information about a product feature that comes up frequently in customer inquiries. Analyzing common issues allows your customer service tool or chatbot to offer pre-emptive solutions. They can also help you better understand the customer journey, including what’s working and where customers might be hitting roadblocks that stop them from converting.
08. Helps upsell premium products
Chatbots aren’t just for customer service issues—they can be used to help you upsell and cross sell products and services. Chatbots can be programmed to interact with customers, understand their buying patterns and make appropriate recommendations for higher-tier products.
For example, let’s say that you sell sweaters for dogs and have a line of matching sweaters for humans. The chatbot can suggest a bundle of the matching human/dog sweater set if the customer reaches out with a question. Chatbots can also suggest a premium product when a customer reaches out with a question (i.e., “Do you have rose gold hoop earrings?”)
09. Provides personalized recommendations
AI offers a unique position to give customers personalized recommendations based on in-session activity. It’s a similar scenario to upselling in that chatbots can tailor a conversation to provide relevant results based on a conversation they’re having with the customer.
This includes suggesting products, providing direction about sizing and guiding customers as they move through the process of shopping. This is a hands-on approach to customer service that turns the chatbot into a kind of concierge, providing one-to-one assistance to each customer.
10. Streamlines your workflow
AI-powered customer service is changing how small businesses operate. As we touched on above, it can answer common customer queries and route more complex issues to the right department or person. This gets customers the answers they need more quickly while reducing the strain on you and your employees.
Chatbots can help you improve your business workflow by:
Automating customer service tasks: Since they can handle multiple customer queries and issues simultaneously, chatbots provide automated triage for issues and questions. They also provide instant responses to customers even if the issue itself isn’t resolved with the first interaction.
Making internal processes more efficient: With AI, you can automate repetitive or time-consuming tasks like appointment scheduling and lead follow up. This kind of repetitive work is also prone to errors and best delegated to robot brains. Think of AI as your super-efficient administrative assistant. It can be integrated into your operational processes as a way to free up employee time and allow you to focus on more strategic, value-driven activities.
Providing 24/7 service: At the end of the day, AI is machine-based. It doesn’t need to eat, sleep or take breaks. One of its biggest advantages is that it can provide support around the clock, ensuring customers in all time zones receive instant assistance.
Saving you money: From handling a higher volume of queries to upselling high-end products, customer service chatbots can double as sales associates. These AI tools for sales help you sell more and personalize offers which drives customer loyalty.
Using data intelligently: AI can gather user data including purchase behavior, customer needs, pain points and insights. It can then turn this data into valuable predictions about trends and roadblocks, helping you improve the customer experience.
Automating all the things: Automation is the key to streamlining workflows, allowing small business owners to focus on high-value activities. As AI-enabled technology evolves, chatbots and other customer service tools will evolve with it. The future of AI-enabled customer service is bright and it’s filled with robots.
Check out how to build a website with AI with the Wix AI website creator.