We've all been there: whether it’s trying to locate a missing shipment, resolve an issue with an e-commerce order, or modify a booking. Our delight at finding an available live chat operator turns to despair when it’s clear that it’s a badly coded bot with only 5 or 6 available responses.
While the first generation of chatbots offered a welcome respite from endless hold music or voice menus, they often missed the mark when it came to actually resolving customer issues. Brands deployed them as a cheaper alternative to staffing helpdesks 24/7 to deal with customer issues — not necessarily aiming to improve service levels. As a result, consumer attitudes to automated web chats are negative, to say the least.
But a new generation of automation has arrived — and it’s ready to change customer perceptions, even change the way we interact with and experience brands. It’s the era of responsive, proactive, even “intelligent” automation.
Proactive solutions — before the customer notices a problem
If you’ve flown first class, eaten in 3-Michelin-star restaurants, or stayed at luxury hotels, you’ll understand that, at the top end of the market, being proactive is the cornerstone of good customer service — anticipating your needs before you even have to ask.
Today’s AI technology enables that level of service for everyone. Imagine your internet goes down right as you're about to join an important video conference. Infuriating, right? Now imagine your provider, armed with AI, already knows about the outage and proactively sends you a message with a temporary workaround before you even realize there's a problem.
That's the true power of predictive AI. By analyzing vast amounts of customer data, network performance metrics, and even social media chatter, AI systems can anticipate potential issues and offer solutions before they escalate, turning a potential crisis into a minor inconvenience.
Getting to know you — hyper-personalized support
Traditionally, support interactions begin with the customer having to provide all of the background information, from start to finish, and sometimes — frustratingly —repeating it to multiple agents before it can be resolved. AI support systems get closer to the customer. They can tailor interactions based on individual customer history, preferences, and even real-time behavior.
Instead of a robotic "How can I help you?", they can offer personalized recommendations during support interactions, like "Based on your recent browsing history and past purchases, you might be interested in this new feature that solves the problem you're describing." Or, if a customer has had similar support issues in the past, the AI could proactively offer a discount or credit, helping to strengthen loyalty and reduce potential customer churn.
From facts to feelings — understanding customer emotions
Recent advancements in sentiment analysis take AI beyond simple keyword recognition: looking for “stop” words such as “cancel” or “complaint” in customer conversations. Today’s AI agents can analyze the nuances of customer communications independently — emails, chats, social media posts, and even tone of voice — to gauge customer sentiment accurately, and tailor their response based on the context. For the most challenging interactions where customers are angry or frustrated, the AI can hand off to a human agent — giving them a heads-up to approach the conversation with empathy and understanding. For example, AI could detect a negative review, flag it for immediate attention, and add sentiment analysis revealing the underlying cause of the customer's frustration. Receiving an accurate AI-generated summary of the issue and the customer’s previous interactions with the brand allows a human agent to get right down to solving the issue — preventing a small complaint from snowballing into a PR disaster.
Ready to integrate AI into your customer service strategy?
Here are our four top tips on getting started, and reaping the benefits of AI-powered CX interactions.
Start small and scale
Don't try to implement every shiny new AI solution at once. Identify specific pain points in your current customer service process and start with targeted pilot projects. Perhaps it's automating password resets, providing personalized product recommendations, or implementing a sentiment analysis tool for social media monitoring. Getting one aspect right will help free up time to look at where else you can deploy AI to the best effect.
Keep your data in shape
This was a key to CX success before AI existed, but it’s even more crucial now. AI relies on clean, accurate, and integrated data sources to carry out tasks accurately, but it also learns and adapts based on the data it ingests. “Garbage in, garbage out” is an old term in computer science, but it’s just as relevant today.
Prioritize your people
AI and human agents make a powerful team when they work well together. Human oversight and training are crucial for ensuring AI systems are ethical, effective, and aligned with your brand values. Be sure to involve key members of your CX or support team in testing out or selecting AI systems — they’ll probably know what works better than you, and they’ll feel like they’re being supported by AI, not replaced.
Stay ahead of the market
AI is evolving fast. So if you’re implementing AI tools to enhance your customer service function — or any other area of your business — you need to be aware of what technologies are coming down the pipe in terms of capacity, capability, and cost.
It’s crucial that you regularly evaluate the performance of your AI solutions, listen to your CX team on what’s working and what’s not, gather customer feedback, and make adjustments as needed to stay ahead of the curve. The good news is that if you’re doing it right, your AI tool should be freeing up enough time for you and your team to become AI experts.
At Sappy, we’re building the next generation of these tools — ensuring a convenient and personalized experience for every customer. If you’re looking for a simpler way to scale and enhance customer engagement, join our waitlist.
