Transforming Customer Experience: How AI is Revolutionizing Customer Service

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming the customer experience. AI is not merely a buzzword; it’s a powerful tool that is reshaping how companies engage with their customers, from chatbots that provide instant support to predictive analytics that anticipate customer needs. AI is helping businesses with efficiency, 24/7 availability, scalability, cost savings, data insights, and more.  

In the AI-evolving business landscape, one thing remains constant: the vital importance of customer experience. Consumers’ expectations for seamless, personalized, and efficient interactions have soared to unprecedented heights as they become more discerning and tech-savvy. Meeting these expectations is no longer just a competitive edge; it’s a prerequisite for staying relevant. Let’s walk through some AI-powered tools that enhance the customer experience.

AI-Powered Tools to Enhance Customer Experience 

Virtual Assistants: Virtual Assistant (voice and chat) enabled with customer intent analysis streamline improvements to knowledge base repositories and the ongoing development of self-service offerings. Machine learning-enabled applications review historical chat and voice transcripts between customers and virtual assistants to extract the most commonly requested intents (i.e., “I’d like to rent a car, I’d like to pay my bill, I’d like to add a service”). These intents can then be inserted into a voice or chat experience to accelerate and improve knowledge repositories and self-service options. 

Customer Journey Mapping: The ability to analyze customer activity on a website, which can be combined with demographic and preference information from a CRM to proactively engage with customers in real-time with a virtual assistant or live agent. 

Natural Language Understanding (NLU): Agent assistance tools use NLU to summarize customer interactions with a virtual assistant for a live agent and proactively provide recommendations and content for that agent to share with the customer. 

Tools in the Financial Sector: In the financial sector, artificial intelligence is used to detect fraudulent activities in real-time, providing that information to contact center agents and internal systems. Providing enhanced security and safety measures for their customers. 

AI Tools: Real-Life Scenarios in Businesses

A great example of incorporating AI is utilizing web messaging to allow customers to contact New Era for support services. Prior to reaching a live agent, the customer is presented with a robust virtual agent-to-self-service with a knowledge repository updated automatically with online content. Suppose the customer is unable to obtain the information they need for assistance. In that case, they can request to be routed to a live agent who will chat with them and triage the individual to technical support engineers via chat or voice if necessary. The transcripts of the interactions are fed through the mining engine to use their inquiries to update the self-service knowledge base regularly. 

By leveraging web messaging, it serves as a means for customers to connect with support services. When a customer initiates contact, they first interact with a powerful virtual agent, which provides them with self-service capabilities through a knowledge repository that is continually updated with online content. In cases where the customer cannot find the information they require, they can request assistance from a live agent. These live agents engage in chat conversations and, if needed, can route the customer to our technical support engineers through either chat or voice communication. Furthermore, the transcripts of these interactions are processed through a mining engine, allowing us to consistently use customer inquiries to enhance and refine our self-service knowledge base. 

How do Businesses Get Started on their AI Journey?

Embarking on an AI journey can be both exciting and challenging. A great place to start would be with a simple chat implementation associated with a knowledge base. A knowledge base can be developed from a list of common FAQs that could be collected from your customer service team. Cloud solutions allow us to auto-generate web page widgets to initiate chat interactions. From there, the historical interaction transcripts can be reviewed to determine why and for what customers are using the bot without extensive data analysis. This information can quickly be used to tune and grow the bot capabilities.   

Note:  Remember that AI adoption is an ongoing process, and the key is to start small, learn from your experience, and gradually expand your AI offerings as your confidence and competence grow internally. 

How New Era Can Assist in Your AI Journey

New Era Technology can play a pivotal role in helping businesses adapt to and implement an AI strategy in the customer service space. Here are some ways in which New Era Technology can assist businesses in this transformative process: 

1. AI Strategy Assessment: New Era Technology can begin by comprehensively assessing the business’s current customer service operations and technology infrastructure. This includes understanding the specific challenges, goals, and pain points that AI can address.  
2. Customized AI Solutions: Once the assessment is complete, New Era can design and develop customized AI solutions that align with the business’s unique needs. This might involve developing AI-powered chatbots, virtual assistants, or predictive analytics tools that integrate seamlessly with the existing customer service ecosystem. New Era has developed pre-packaged offerings to help organizations launch their first AI solutions quickly and effectively, helping customers evolve these offerings over time. 
3. Integration with Existing Systems: Implementing AI in customer service often involves integrating new AI solutions with the company’s existing systems, such as CRM software and communication platforms. New Era will manage the integration process, ensuring a smooth transition. 
4. Training: For AI to work effectively, employees need to understand how to use AI tools. New Era provides training programs and resources to help employees and ensure they are comfortable with AI systems. 
5. Continuous Improvement: We have established mechanisms to continuously evaluate AI systems, identify areas for enhancement, and adapt to evolving customer needs. 
6. Security and Compliance: New Era also addresses data security and compliance concerns, ensuring that AI solutions adhere to industry regulations to protect customer data. 
7. Cost-Benefit Analysis: Implementing AI can substantially impact an organization’s financial outlook. New Era will conduct analyses to help understand the return on investment (ROI) of their strategy. 
8. Scalability: New Era can design scalable AI solutions, allowing for growth or modification as the business evolves. 

New Era Technology serves as a strategic partner in the journey to adapt to and implement AI in the customer service space. Their expertise in technology solutions, data management, and AI implementation can help businesses leverage the full potential of AI to enhance customer service, improve efficiency, and gain a competitive edge in the marketplace. Contact us today to get started.

Authors:

Andrea Smith   |  Executive Director, Software Solutions, New Era Technology
James Fontaine  |  Director, Business Development, New Era Technology