How do customers feel about AI in customer service?

Suppose a customer is having difficulty adapting to  your product. What would be their immediate reaction? To seek help from the support team. 

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The idea of “seeking help” has changed over the years. In the pre-AI era, seeking help meant sending an email to the customer support team and waiting for days or even weeks for their response. You could also call the customer support team and keep listening to “You are next in line,” but your turn never came. 

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And the post-AI era? Well, it is fun! 

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When customers are struggling with a product, the first thing they do is watch the product tour. If they are still not convinced, they post a message through the support desk chatbot and get instant responses to their routine queries. 

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The use of AI in customer service is more popular than ever. A 2023 study revealed that 15% of Americans have used AI chat or text programs in the last month. This percentage will undoubtedly increase in 2024. 

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But here is a question: Are customers happy with the increasing use of AI in customer service, or do they miss the human touch? 

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We read industry reports and interviewed customer service leaders to find a concrete answer to the above question. Let us present our findings in this blog post. 

How have customer expectations changed over the years?

While many companies try too hard to delight their customers, you make the real difference by keeping the basic promises. For example, if your pricing page says “24/7 availability,” but customers in different time zones have to wait 24 hours to get a response from your support team, that’s not keeping a promise. 

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Customers expect two things from an enterprise brand: either you remain present to respond to their queries or empower them so they find a solution to their queries on their own. 

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All customers expect the following from the customer service teams: 

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• AI Self service interactions through the most familiar communication channels. Be it Teams, Slack, or even WhatsApp, customers expect you to be present in their most commonly used channels for faster query resolution. Too many communication channels overwhelm customers. If you provide support through one channel, it has to be their preferred channel to encourage stickiness toward the self-served interaction 

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• Not just resolving the current issue faced by a customer but going that extra mile and redirecting them to the solutions to the probable following issues. Fintech platform Fidelity’s self-service portal uses a “next issues” prompt to provide customers with solutions to their possible next queries after resolving the current one. Currently, 25% of all service transactions on Fidelity’s website are generated from this prompt  

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• It is not that customers expect only self-served interactions. They do appreciate human interactions. However, those human interactions have to address the emotional side of the customer’s query. A UK-based mortgage company has reduced their repeat call rate by 40% by coaching its support team on how to identify a customer’s personality type  

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“I've noticed that AI-backed customer support platforms get a thumbs-up when they're quick and get the job done right. Customers love that they can reach out for help any time, day or night, and handle their issues without ever having to talk to a person. The important thing here is speed and care. When these tools understand what customers need and offer solid solutions without any issues, people are happy.” - Emma Sansom, Managing Director, Flamingo Marketing Strategies Ltd

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Here are a few insights that will help you get a broader idea of customer expectations related to AI in customer service: 

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• 61% of new customers select AI-based product responses over waiting for human agents 
• 50% of customers feel positive about engaging with AI during business interactions 
• 36% of customers are learning to work with AI to do their jobs better
• 2 in 3 consumers say long hold times matter more to them this year than they did a year ago

How are companies meeting these changing demands? 

90% of marketers believe that AI helps them free up their time from manual tasks and empowers them to spend more time on the most enjoyable activities. When discussing meeting customers’ expectations, one AI powered tool that instantly comes up is - chatbots. 

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Chatbots have evolved over the years. Chatbots have come a long way, from simply automating FAQs into responses to performing sensitivity analysis to understand customers’ emotions. Chatbots are the most used AI app, with 53% of users voting for their efficiency. 

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"Automating routine tasks, such as answering FAQs, enhances customer support teams'  productivity by freeing up agents' time, allowing them to thoroughly manage complex tasks rather than routing inquiries and processing answers each time. AI-powered chatbots also provide instant responses, which reduces wait times an, therefore, increases customer satisfaction. Part of the sophistication of these tools is to analyze huge volumes of data to identify issues and prompt solutions, which enables customer support teams to be more proactive. Leveraging AI in customer service allows customer support teams to operate more efficiently in shorter duration and in the long run, delivers better customer experience." - John Pennypacker VP, Sales & Marketing , Deep Cognition 

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If you are planning to meet customers’ demands by leveraging chatbots to their full potential, here’s how to achieve that: 

Use conversational widgets within your products

Conversational AI assistants like Alltius’ KNO Widget allow you to add conversational widgets within the product to coach the users with relevant features and keep them undistracted while using your platform. 

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You will have full control over the widgets, and they are fully customizable. You can add public URLs, video playlists, PDFs, and CSV files—anything that might assist users in getting accustomed to your product and different use cases. 

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Since every support ticket costs up to $8, there’s no point in engaging your support agents in manual tasks that could easily be resolved with AI. Conversational AI widgets automate simple product queries and provide access to instant resources so human agents can work on more unique cases. 

Re-use customer service queries to train support teams 

With conversational AI platforms like Support Agent Assist by Alltius, you can convert historical conversations into knowledge bases for your support executives. Launching such a platform is a simple, three-step process: You add all knowledge resources, pair them with existing skills or build your skills, and launch the assistant to support your customer service team. You can always update the resource on the go. 

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With this platform, customer support agents: 

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• Know their customers and their needs closely 
• Get a summarized version of customer issues 
• Access to similar historical issues in the past to get fast access to potential solutions 
• Categorize the conversations in labels and group users in dedicated cohorts based on user behavior 

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Alltius also allows you to connect your ticketing systems like Zendesk, process past support tickets, and re-use them as a source to answer the support team’s questions faster. 

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Assurance IQ, a well-known insurance company, used this to answer 96% of agent questions and observed an average 20% increase in overall productivity within two years. 

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There are various other uses of AI in customer service, such as: 

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Jen Seran, Director of Business Operations at Stallion Express, told us how the company uses their chatbot Stella to “handle mundane questions, like tracking shipments or getting rate quotes. This frees 40% more time for our support team. This shift allows our team to deliver more personalized and quality service, improving overall customer satisfaction.” 

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Eliot Vancil, CEO at Fuellogic explained the interesting use of AI ticketing solution, “Here at Network Logic, after implementing an AI ticketing solution, we saw a 40% decrease in response time and a 50% decrease in manual ticket sorting time. Not only does this improve operations, but it also improves employee morale by engaging employees in more meaningful and rewarding work.” 

But do customers really want to use AI in customer service?

There is no one way to answer this. While customers appreciate the fast and accurate support that comes with AI tools, they also miss the human touch that’s missing in many conversational AI platforms. 

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Rajesh Namase, Co-Founder and Professional Tech Blogger at TechRT, says “Customers have different thoughts on support tools that use AI. Assistants and self-service platforms make it easy to ask simple questions, and many people like how efficient and available they are 24 hours a day, seven days a week. But there is a clear worry about the lack of personalized interactions and the AI's failure to handle tough problems well.” 

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71% of customers expect organizations to deliver personalized interactions, and 76% get frustrated if that doesn’t happen. The solution uses the right AI tools in customer support to balance personalization and automation. 

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• 8/10 customers are likely to purchase from businesses that interact with them through channels like phone, emails, messaging platforms, and in-app messages 

• 74% of consumers say they're more likely to purchase from a company that lets them message as opposed to only having the option to call
• 85% of consumers want brands to create personalized connections with them
• 77% of consumers say they won't wait on hold past 15 minutes
• 37% of consumers say that they are more likely to purchase from a brand that uses conversational A, which connects emotionally
  
  

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Rajesh continues, “The key is to find the right balance between AI tools and easy-to-reach human help to give customers a smooth and positive experience.”

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Opting for a self service platform is a great way to create AI powered customer support without compromising on personalization and the human touch. Self served platforms empower customers and provide them access to simple solutions without waiting hours for a response from the customer support team. 

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This brings us to Emma Sansom’s opinion on self service platforms and their role in the modern customer support ecosystem, “Self-service tools that feature comprehensive FAQs, guides, and simple navigation are also a big hit. Platforms like Zendesk and Intercom are popular because they blend AI support with the option to talk to a real person if needed. This combination of quick AI help and accessible human support hits the mark, giving both efficiency and a touch of personal care.”

The future of customer service is AI 

The future of customer service looks brighter than ever as more AI-backed customer support tools emerge in this field. With 79% of customer support professionals agreeing that AI is essential in an organization’s overall service strategy, there is no denying that AI is here to stay and will change how most businesses approach support activities. 

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Using AI to simplify customers’ lives will make a real difference. With tools like Alltius, your support team can be wherever your customers reside and create productive help centers and knowledge bases to help them find answers to historical queries. 

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Want to see Alltius at work? 

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Book a demo

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