Transforming Customer Service: Gen-AI Chatbots, FAQs, and Beyond

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has transitioned from a futuristic concept in sci-fi thrillers to a ubiquitous presence in our daily lives. So much so that it is now common to engage with automated customer service representatives powered by Generative AI, or Gen AI, even when addressing common issues such as a delay in food delivery.

When it comes to understanding Gen AI, the technology is best exemplified by one of its famous applications – ChatGPT. Developed by OpenAI, ChatGPT uses Gen AI, a type of AI that learns from existing data to mimic human-like interactions and produce new forms of content. While ChatGPT generates text, entering the mainstream tech landscape along with it are image-producing Gen AI applications such as DALL-E and Midjourney, which have also contributed to revolutionizing the world of content as we know it.

The Magic of Gen AI in Customer Service

Driven by its immense potential, Gen AI has unsurprisingly found multiple benefits in business, especially in automating customer service.

From enhancing query handling times and boosting agent productivity to identifying prospects for upselling and cross-selling, reducing costs, and providing a measurable return on investments, Gen AI can function like a magic wand in the hands of customer experience officers who know how to skillfully wield it for creating innovative customer experiences.

In line with this transformative shift, AI-driven personalization and omnichannel interactions will play a crucial role in building customer engagement.

This development is a relief in the backdrop of tremendous challenges to customer service including outdated legacy infrastructure and shrinking budgets. According to a recent Qualtrics XM Institute study, bad customer experiences are putting global sales at serious risk.

While it is evident that organizations stand to benefit from automated customer service through Gen AI, it is not all about the business benefits.

Top Gen AI Use Cases in Customer Care

Gen AI brings with it the distinctive blend of familiarity and novelty. It enhances regular customer care, making it quicker and simpler to address issues. Let us explore some of the top Gen AI applications in customer service.

Chatbots

According to Verint survey, several customers expect better customer service through bots and AI, with majority believing that AI chatbots in customer service will result in benefits that range from time saving, better service experience, and understanding the intent for reaching out. Gen AI chatbots use algorithms to comprehend and respond to user questions or messages, eliminating the need for human intervention. For instance, when a customer visits a company’s website with a concern, the chatbot feature enables them to directly interact with an automated representative by typing their request into a chat window and receive human-like responses.

FAQs

Gen AI can learn from existing FAQs and related industry jargon to produce customizable FAQs that can be easily integrated into a business. It can also track customer intent, supporting contact centers to prioritize actions for improved customer journeys. Moreover, tools such as Google Cloud’s Generative FAQ for Contact Center AI insights can help companies pinpoint gaps in their FAQs, identify trending queries, and enhance overall customer support responses.

Self-service Platform

Gen AI-powered self-service portals empower customers to solve queries independently. A prime example are several travel websites that integrate ChatGPT into their apps. Instead of navigating their website for flights or hotels, users can seek AI recommendations on destinations, accommodations, and transportation, emulating a conversation with a human travel agent.

Customer Feedback

As it is powered by machine learning and natural language processing technologies, Gen AI can grasp customer sentiments by categorizing them as neutral, positive, or negative. It can also improve the customer feedback loop by analyzing and summarizing customer journeys, complaints, and agent performance. It also quickly supports tickets, offering insights to agents to effectively respond to customers.

Customized 24/7 Support

As indicated by Hubspot Research, many customers seeking support reveal that receiving a response in 10 minutes or less is important or very important to them. Compared to human support, Gen AI offers a cost-effective and quick way to take account of customer interaction histories across multiple platforms, creating personalized email replies, chat conversations, and step-by-step walkthroughs for issue resolution round the clock.

A Paradigm Shift

The integration of Gen AI to automate customer service by applying chatbots, FAQs, and beyond marks a major milestone in enhancing customer experiences. As Gen AI progresses, businesses can leverage this technology to build more sophisticated automated solutions for benefits such as building operational efficiency, enhancing customer interactions, and providing swift responses to inquiries.

However, using Gen AI to automate customer service may come with challenges such as having to address poor-quality data issues, handling complex conversations, navigating regulatory and ethical concerns, and managing customer and employee resistance to accepting and understanding the technology. Moreover, the concern of disrupting traditional employment roles in customer contact centers is a grim reality.

However, Gen AI also frees humans from routine tasks. This can enable customer service departments to focus on data quality and governance, compliance and regulatory standards, and innovation and creativity to leverage the benefits of Gen AI instead of working against it.

Furthermore, as Gen AI is here to stay and evolving by the day, companies that embrace it to automate customer service can realize tangible benefits through the combined power of human touch and AI technology.