{"id":50,"date":"2017-10-17T04:57:05","date_gmt":"2017-10-17T04:57:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nimeyo.com\/blog\/?p=50"},"modified":"2017-10-17T04:57:05","modified_gmt":"2017-10-17T04:57:05","slug":"two-ai-use-cases-for-customer-support-and-services","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nimeyo.com\/blog\/2017\/10\/17\/two-ai-use-cases-for-customer-support-and-services\/","title":{"rendered":"Two AI Use Cases for Customer Support and Services"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In our last post, we highlighted the fact that many companies <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">assume <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">that the more \u201chuman\u201d parts of business \u2014sales and customer service\u2014have little to gain from Artificial Intelligence. Of course, this assumption is incorrect, and liable to mislead companies who could otherwise stand to benefit.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Consider:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">According to Forrester, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.forrester.com\/72+Of+Businesses+Name+Improving+Customer+Experience+Their+Top+Priority\/-\/E-PRE9109\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">72% of businesses<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> say that improving the customer experience is their top priority.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Most contact with customer service now takes place via the web using a chatbot, via email, or via social media. The set of skills and tools needed here are different than, say, handling a case via phone.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Customers have ever-growing expectations with regards to response time. A decade ago, customers were willing to wait 24 hours for an answer to a question or a solution to their problems. <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.astutesolutions.com\/blog\/articles\/5-trends-in-consumer-demand-for-digital-self-service\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Now they want an answer right away&#8230;if not instantly<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As business grow and expand their global reach, more and more customer support cases begin to look similar. Solving each case independently is burdensome, if not impossible.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The average customer triage and resolution cycle takes five or more steps <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">having to do solely with information search among the organizations various data sources.<\/span><\/i><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In other words, the need for a human being with \u201cpeople skills\u201d is diminishing just as the strengths of artificial intelligence agents\u2014such as the ability to query multiple data sources quickly and efficiently\u2014are coming in high demand. Indeed, one prediction holds that, by the year 2020, <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.gartner.com\/imagesrv\/summits\/docs\/na\/customer-360\/C360_2011_brochure_FINAL.pdf\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">more than 85% of all customer interactions will be handled without the need for a human agent<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But what does customer support via artificial intelligence agent look like? Again, we can illustrate this best with two use cases around our own knowledge automation solution, <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/nimeyo.com\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Nimeyo<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Use Case 1: Resolving Customer Issues When Knowledge is Siloed<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><b>The Context:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Today, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.astutesolutions.com\/blog\/articles\/5-trends-in-consumer-demand-for-digital-self-service\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">customer service reps are expected to resolve customer issues faster and faster<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, even as they take on huge case volume to justify their job roles. In order to do a good job of meeting customer expectations and succeed in their roles, a single pane of information and knowledge access is essential.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>The Challenge:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Again, the typical customer resolution in an organization of any appreciable sizes takes researching five or more data-sources. These include:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Querying customer-facing case management systems (such as Salesforce Service Cloud or Zendesk) to identify duplicates and bring up relevant contextual information<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Comparing across internal incident management systems (such as Jira) to find similar cases already being addressed, or that have recently been addressed successfully.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Searching KnowledgeBase articles and wikis for quick resolution of common problems, or concise answers to frequently asked questions<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Combing through off-band but relevant conversations in emails or Slack channels<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Already, this process is pretty daunting. When you consider that two or more of these steps could be taken for cases that are very similar, and for which solutions already exist, it becomes painfully obvious how much time is wasted and productivity sacrificed. Currently, organizations are struggling to find ways to integrate these various sources into a single pane.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>How AI Helps:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This scenario is easily fixed with a solution like Nimeyo knowledge automation. Using Nimeyo, customer service reps can address cases more readily, thanks to instant access to knowledge of similar cases across content silos of customer issues and internal product ticket systems. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Nimeyo can also integrate with management systems like Salesforce, as well as incident management systems like Jira and chat channels like Slack. It can then access these systems instantly and use the information in them to help zero-in on the resolution for a given case, relieving the customer service rep from having to do these searches manually.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">More importantly, Nimeyo helps customer service reps deflect more cases by giving them increased visibility of similar cases across customer issues and internal product ticket systems. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">All of this results in more rapid response which, ideally, leads to improving their first contact and\/or first time resolution times.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Use Case 2: Self-help Bots For Customers and Service Teams<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><b>The Context:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As we all know, a lot hinges on having a positive customer service experience: It can mean the difference between a loyal customer, and a disgruntled one. Speed and accuracy matter crucially, and customer demand instant responses. If they don\u2019t find an answer immediately, they are disappointed and are quick to share their bad experience on social media or other public channels.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But increasing complexity of products and services, along with the high turnover rate of most call centers, means that it is almost impossible for service reps to keep up with the content needed to resolve issues in a timely fashion. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These dynamics are fundamentally changing how both customers and service reps seek out information. For example, the majority of Millennials actively avoid situations for which human interaction is necessary to solve an issue, much preferring self-service options instead. One study of the generational divide in customer service found that a whopping <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ibm.com\/blogs\/watson\/2017\/04\/10-reasons-ai-powered-automated-customer-service-future\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">72% of Millennials believe a phone call is not the best way to resolve their customer service issues<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So how are consumer resolving their issues, if not calling customer support? Right now, they are using a mix of chat bots on websites, social media sites for the relevant brands, chat channels, and Google searches. In other words, they are already going with digital self-help solutions.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>The Challenge:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Companies face two choices: Either improve the self-help bots they make available, or better empower their service teams to compete with these bots.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Most of the current self-help systems are web centric, so customers are relegated to searching for a solution themselves\u2014and are often confronted with more pages than they are willing to review. Even if they do find the \u00a0answer they seek, it may not be the most accurate or latest answer. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That said, many Customers are still \u201cput at ease\u201d knowing that there is a customer service rep in the interaction; but this \u201chuman touch\u201d engagement is costly, often only available during business hours, and is (for the most part) unscalable.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>How AI Helps:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With a Nimeyo AI solution, customer service organizations can create a foundation of knowledge and insights from approved content sources like FAQ databases, product documentation or issue tracking systems. Subsequently, bots or auto responses act as the first line of defense to respond to common question with known answers or fixes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When a customer sends an email to a support email address, the email autoresponder can look at the knowledge available to instantly respond with links to most relevant answer. If the customer is happy with the answer, then the customer service team can mark the issue as resolved. If the customer indicates that more assistance is needed, a rep can reach out for additional information.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What about availability and scale? Typically, a customer service chat is available only during business hours (unless you have a globally distributed service teams.) However, if a customer initiates a chat with a rep during off hours, an auto responder bot can respond to customer query with knowledge from approved sources. Queries such as the status of a case, answers to FAQs, or product specific questions can be responded to in seconds without any human intervention. Again, the chatbot can be the first line of defense before a rep needs to be engaged.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Again, these are just two simple ways that AI agents are changing the face of customer service.<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Counter to many of the assumptions surrounding AI, human beings will always have a role to play in customer support, since there will always be difficult cases requires a person\u2019s \u00a0ability to understand the nuances of the case and find creative solutions. Increased productivity comes when human beings can be freed from routine and easily-solved cases, and allowed to focus on more complex cases and tasks. Artificial Intelligence can potentially leave service reps free to tap into the critical thinking and problem-solving skills, not to mention emotional intelligence, when they are needed most.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If it still sounds like a pipe-dream to empower human interactions through AI technology, we recommend you try Nimeyo yourself to see how this can be done in your organization.<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nimeyo.com\/contact.php#contact-block\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Sign up for a free demo<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, and we would be delighted to give you a tour and show how the Nimeyo AI can be best used by your customer service teams. <\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"linkedInShareButton\"><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"http:\/\/platform.linkedin.com\/in.js\"><\/script><script type=\"in\/share\" data-url=\"https:\/\/www.nimeyo.com\/blog\/2017\/10\/17\/two-ai-use-cases-for-customer-support-and-services\/\"><\/script><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In our last post, we highlighted the fact that many companies assume that the more \u201chuman\u201d parts of business \u2014sales and customer service\u2014have little to gain from Artificial Intelligence. Of course, this assumption is incorrect, and liable to mislead companies who could otherwise stand to benefit. Consider: According to Forrester, 72% of businesses say that &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nimeyo.com\/blog\/2017\/10\/17\/two-ai-use-cases-for-customer-support-and-services\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Two AI Use Cases for Customer Support and Services&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,10,11,17,3,9],"tags":[29,28,14,27],"class_list":["post-50","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-customer-support","category-enterprise-search","category-human-generated-content-analysis","category-knowledge-management","category-qpod","category-self-help","tag-customer-success","tag-customer-support","tag-knowledge-management","tag-self-help"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nimeyo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nimeyo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nimeyo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nimeyo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nimeyo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nimeyo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52,"href":"https:\/\/www.nimeyo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50\/revisions\/52"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nimeyo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nimeyo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nimeyo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}