BOTS IN CUSTOMER SERVICE

The 1970s experienced a radical shift in customer service that went way beyond salesmen sporting bell bottoms while on the floor.

The introduction of IVR (or “Interactive Voice Response” technology) rocked the business world as automated customer services began to replace person to person interaction. Although it was initially slower to take off, this new technology picked up speed until it took the stage in standard customer service procedures. Despite the cost-cutting benefits for companies who use IVR technology, many of us are familiar with the frustrating experiences of being stuck in an automated call menu, unable to find a “real person.”

A poll taken by the Interactions Corporation that surveyed more than 2,000 people reported that 83% of consumers (about 8 in 10 customers) would stop using a company’s services if they had a poor experience with voice automated customer service. This reality (and a dramatic increase in technology) has motivated companies to find better solutions for automated customer service.

The recent explosion of AI (“Automated Intelligence”) bots has caused a lot of people to wonder just where this trend will lead the customer service industry, and if it even has a significant future at all. So what’s the deal with AI bots, and should your business use this technology?

1-AI BOTS SHOULD BE USED IN CONJUNCTION WITH HUMAN CUSTOMER SERVICE, NOT IN AN ATTEMPT TO REPLACE IT.

In the early days of IVR customer service technology, it was far less comprehensive than it is today. Nowadays, some companies make you go from step A to step Z in a completely automated system. While this can work at times, it often causes frustration (yes, I may have been tempted to throw my phone against the wall during a certain voice automated customer service experience).

Brian Spencer, the general manager of contact centers at Mitel, a telecommunications company, says that companies should learn from the mistakes of IVR technology: “We have an opportunity to not repeat history and use chatbots to enhance the customer experience in better ways.”

AI bots should generally be used in the first tiers of customer interaction, to gather key words, questions, and other data that can be used to solve the customer’s problem. Problems occur when AI bots do not “sense” when a customer’s problem is only solvable by a human agent. This causes frustration to the customer, and potentially alienates them once they hit the “brick wall” of the AI’s inability to transfer them elsewhere.

A 2016 Forrester study titled “The Future of Customer Service” reported that 53 percent of adults who are online in the US will likely abandon their online purchase if they can’t find quick answers to their questions.

2-AI BOTS CAN BE USED IN STRATEGIC WAYS TO SIGNIFICANTLY REDUCE COSTS AND STREAMLINE THE CUSTOMER SERVICE PROCESS

Although problems do exist if AI is misused or used too extensively, it can be utilized in some pretty cool ways.

Domino’s Pizza demonstrated its ability to stay on the cutting edge by announcing to its Australian customers that they could now order pizza simply by texting a pizza emoji to an official Domino’s number. Domino’s AI bots made this possible by logging the information and performing a simple response interaction with the customer.

But how can a company use these bots strategically, while also maintaining a strong human customer service presence?

Many companies are using AI bots to capture both customer lead information and service queries in the first seconds of interacting with a customer, whether this is through social media or online chat services on the business’s website. Then, if the question is not able to be answered by the bot, it can funnel the customer and their issues elsewhere to a human agent who is more equipped to solve the problem.

In addition to this type of AI interaction, other business to customer interactions can also be streamlined by bots. Online scheduling bots such as “Amy” of X.ai can schedule meetings for you so that you have time focus on more important things.

3-SOCIAL MEDIA AND MESSAGING PLATFORMS CAN BE INTEGRATED WITH BOT SERVICES TO IMPROVE AND STREAMLINE CUSTOMER INTERACTION

Many companies are jumping on board with AI and social media integration. Facebook messenger, which boasts over 900 million users, has recently announced its new functions as a sort of CRM (Customer Relationship Manager), and will increase its Messenger capabilities to include integration with its artificial intelligence-based personal assistant (“M”).

Companies are able to use social media and messaging apps to deliver shipping notifications, receipts and automated messages.

SO, WILL AI BOTS EVENTUALLY REPLACE HUMAN CUSTOMER SERVICE INTERACTION?

Even though new technology continues to impress us and simplify our lives in many ways, human to human interaction will never be fully (or rather, satisfactorily) replaced by AI customer service. Just as the onset of IVR technology in the 1970s thrilled companies with its cost-cutting benefits, users soon realized that it had its function, but was not the ultimate solution.

Technology will continue to simplify our lives, and we will be able to continue to satisfy our customers once we figure out how to successfully–and creatively–integrate artificial intelligence with human customer service interaction.