Don't just try to make your customers happy. Make them dazzled and delighted.
Effective customer service is by far the most important factor in business. Why? Because customers are king—they are the reason your business exists.
If you provide your customers with excellent customer service, you can guarantee that they will come back to do business with your brand again and again—which means you can consistently record significant sales and increase your revenue.
On the other hand, if you don't treat your customers well, they will abandon your business and even tell their friends about their bad experience.
A recent study revealed that 42% of B2C customers purchased more products after a good customer service experience, while 52% stopped purchasing after a poor customer service interaction.
This is why many companies, such as Amazon and Airbnb, invest a large portion of their budgets in creating a great customer service experience. Even better, advances in technology continue to make customer service better.
Popular articles on how businesses are using bots:
1. Why Chatbots Are Key to the Future of Business Intelligence
Specifically, artificial intelligence has become a top priority for Fortune 500 companies—with AI, you can take customer service to a whole new level.
According to Gartner, by 2020, more than 85% of customer interactions will be handled without the need for a human agent.
AI (Artificial Intelligence) is the answer. The relationship between humans and machines is changing very quickly. You can now leverage artificial intelligence to provide a high level of customer service.
Let's discuss how you can do this:
1). AI provides reliable service wherever customers need it
Have you ever found anyone who can work day and night, 365 days a year? I don't think this is possible.
Even though it's not possible, customers still expect you to answer their questions when they need them—even if it's before 12 midnight.
A recent report showed that 57% of consumers expect a response within 30 minutes, whether that’s at night, on weekends or during the day.
It goes without saying that if a company is to retain their customers and thrive in this competitive marketing environment, it needs to provide a reliable and effective customer experience, not just service.
And this is where AI comes to help and support human shortcomings. AI provides a high level of reliability that you can't get from humans. Artificial intelligence is just a computer or software that does things you can't do.
If you want to run your business around the clock, you should consider using an AI chatbot for your business.
Not only are AI chatbots available at any time, they attempt to provide your customers with the best information they need to resolve their issues.
What’s more, because AI chatbots are built with natural language processing and machine learning, they are cognitive; when you communicate with them, they understand your intent. AI chatbots are designed to learn from interactions with humans.
If you make a typo when typing information, it'll quickly understand your intent, possibly give you the correct spelling, and ask you if that's what you meant.
In an interview with Fast Company, Concierge CEO David Barrett pointed out that Concierge (artificial intelligence chatbot) has helped reduce bank problems by 75%.
2). You can use artificial intelligence to automate customer service through messaging apps
Most of your customers are either on Facebook Messenger, Slack, Skype, or both. They'll have the opportunity to leave a message for your business directly from their favorite messaging app.
In 2015, Facebook Messenger was the fastest growing messenger app, and it still is, according to a Nielsen study.
The fact is that except for those who don’t work on the internet, your customers spend most of their time on messaging apps.
Therefore, it’s much easier for them to contact your business from their favorite messenger program than it is to pick up the phone and call you or browse your website to use your contact form.
Sadly, Facebook launched their chatbot in 2015 and provided an open source API for developers to leverage and build powerful chatbots.
While Facebook took down AI after one experiment, we can expect more. Slack also launched their new AI chatbot API for developers.
These chatbots allow you to bring your customer care to your customers. You can use messenger chatbots to generate sales, leads, and let your customers fill out online forms interactively.
Trim, for example, is a fintech startup that helps you negotiate your bills and check your balances and transactions right from the Facebook Messenger app.
It also allows you to cancel any subscriptions with a simple chat. Customers will be more willing to do business with your brand if you can make your customer support available wherever it is.
3). Customers like self-service
As time goes by, customers' requirements become higher and higher. They basically don't want to wait for you to help them do things they can do themselves - they want a certain level of control.
They want you to provide them with a way to help themselves.
It's getting harder and harder to please customers these days. Customers want to see self-service on your website. In fact, it should be a part of every website. They want to be able to help themselves until they hit muddy waters and then you can step in and help them out.
You have to understand that customer service facilities, such as phone and email support, do not measure up to the growing need for effective self-service.
Recent research shows that 90% of consumers expect a brand or organization to offer a self-service customer support portal.
AI chatbots are the self-service agents customers are looking for. With an AI chatbot, there may not be a need for customers to call a customer service agent, except in extreme cases where the bot can’t help them with a problem.
In addition to customers requiring you to implement this feature on your website, it can have a huge impact on your bottom line. It drives massive engagement with your brand and website, increases time spent on your website, increases brand affinity, and of course, encourages repeat traffic.
4). AI personalizes your customer service experience
Customers want the best customer service options. If you can provide them with the best possible service using any technology, you will inspire them to stick with your brand.
However, they don’t want to lose the human touch and personalization. "People feel more comfortable when they talk to a human rather than an automated machine," said Amalia Agathou.
Customers want to be heard, and they want to feel that you care about helping them solve their problems. They want to interact with your brand. An AI chatbot can be a great addition to your overall customer service efforts.
Cognitive capabilities through machine learning and natural language processing are added to chatbots, and they become more sophisticated and "human."
Since AI chatbots are designed to learn from human interactions, they tend to learn from their interactions with customers and know the best way to connect with them.
While you can also include pictures of humans in your chatbot, don’t try to trick customers into thinking they’re chatting with a real human.
When people interact with a well-designed AI chatbot, they think they are communicating with a real human being.
Analytical techniques in artificial intelligence make it even more interesting as chatbots use the data they extract from conversations with customers to serve them better.
Beyond that, experience a smooth customer transition here compared to when you have multiple customers handling your customer support.
For example, if a client had been taken care of by Brian earlier, David would definitely not be able to recall and synchronize the previous interaction. AI chatbots, on the other hand, are able to recall your last conversation and try to help you close your outstanding deals.
5. AI enables you to quickly answer customer questions
In this fast-paced era, customers want answers quickly. To stand out from your competitors and win customers, you need to provide faster and better service than your competitors.
To meet consumers’ high demands on brands, brands are embracing robotics to help customers solve their problems quickly.
For example, in the hospitality industry, and specifically the hotel segment, brands like Hilton have incorporated artificial intelligence as part of their key guest experience at the Hilton in McLean, Virginia, USA.
They partnered with IBM to use Connie, the first Watson-enabled robotic concierge, to help guests with any information they might need about the hotel and its surroundings.
So customers don't need to worry about calling customer service, instead they can see Connie quickly and ask any questions and get answers quickly.
This robot, Connie, uses cognitive reasoning to provide customers with quick access to personalized information in a friendly way.
in conclusion
Some people believe that artificial intelligence will replace humans. What do you think?
Personally, I have a different view: Artificial intelligence will not replace humans. Artificial intelligence is built to help individuals do what they strive for. Interestingly, while we were worried about automation displacing 800,000 workers, it created 3.5 million jobs.
For example, a live chat agent cannot answer questions 24 hours a day without sleeping, but artificial intelligence can. A person cannot remember so much, but artificial intelligence can.
Keep in mind that AI is literally still in its infancy, so hopefully things will get better in the future.
I don't see AI as a threat, rather, I see it as a complement to human vulnerability. Employing artificial intelligence in your customer service is an effective way to provide a memorable customer service experience. Find out more in this white paper.