Artificial Intelligence has come a long way in the last few years, particularly in the customer service landscape. Clunky, complicated bots only capable of responding to queries with pre-set answers have now been replaced by truly innovative tools, capable of almost human-like responses.
Conversational AI, powered by machine learning, natural language processing, and large language models, has transformed the CX landscape forever. With the right tools, companies can not only better understand their customers and their journeys, but also create phenomenal self-service solutions, which minimize the strain on internal teams.
As the conversational AI space continues to grow at an accelerated rate, projected to reach a value of up to $41.39 billion by 2030, companies from all industries are beginning to discover the benefits of the technology for themselves. Here are some of the top reasons why businesses should consider investing in conversational AI during 2023.
- Improving Data Collection and Insights
Data is crucial to creating a fantastic customer service strategy. The more information companies can capture about the customer journey, and the needs of their target audience, the easier it is to produce an intuitive CX plan. Conversational AI can be a fantastic tool for not only collecting large amounts of intuitive data, but turning raw information into useful, actionable insights.
An advanced conversational AI solution can monitor conversations on virtually any channel, from social media to website messaging and voice, providing insights into patterns and trends in the customer journey. Many CCaaS and CRM vendors are even introducing tools into their platforms which use conversational AI to detect information about customer intent and sentiment.
These tools can then provide agents and employees with valuable guidance, next-best-action suggestions, and other forms of support, leading to a better overall customer experience.
- Reduced Customer Service Costs
In recent years, companies have begun to shift away from viewing customer service as a cost center. Business leaders have started recognizing the ROI excellent CX can provide in the form of increased customer retention, brand loyalty, and higher order values. However, in today’s complicated economic environment, most organizations are still looking for ways to cut costs.
Conversational AI tools could be an excellent resource in this regard, offering companies an opportunity to automate more of the mundane and repetitive tasks employees need to complete each day, so they can improve the productivity of their teams, and reduce hiring needs. Additionally, conversational AI solutions built into chat bots and self-service technologies offer companies the opportunity to offer 24/7 service, without hiring around-the-clock staff.
With the right technologies, companies can minimize their need for extra customer support agents, and make sure the employees they have are as efficient and productive as possible.
- Improved Productivity and Efficiency
While many companies investing in conversational AI focus on the benefits the technology can have on customer satisfaction scores, this technology can also be extremely useful for improving the employee experience too. As mentioned above, the right conversational tools, implemented into self-service strategies, can significantly reduce the volume of queries human agents have to handle.
Virtual assistants and bots can also provide agents with useful guidance and support in the moment as they work. They can immediately surface customer information and product data when they recognize a keyword or phrase, or provide next-best-action guidance based on historical data.
