Digital transformation is an enormous force remaking every part of the operation – including the area of customer support – with new technologies such as generative AI highlighting how one can interact more directly with customers and answer their queries, ultimately improving the customer experience and other key metrics in the process.

People used self-service when they were first able to do so because it offered quick solutions to common ‘first contact’ queries – freeing up the human support people to apply their know-how to the problems where it could make a real contribution – and drive a positive customer experience as well.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

And today, customer support for not-so-complex questions or issues can be provided around the clock, thanks to the availability of chatbots and virtual assistants that can be operated through advanced AI. Making these conversations sound more natural with each passing day, as well as making such interactions to find quick fixes much faster too, are now made possible due to the introduction of generative AI.

This kind of personalisation benefits customers by creating experiences that are more relevant and effective with every interaction, as AI is able to recognise explicit and implicit needs based on voice data captured from calls to a customer service line.

Integrating customer feedback across the customer service, sales, marketing and product departments enables companies to avoid the unacceptable situation in which the customer feels they are being heard while the company effectively doesn’t hear them, while also helping companies make better products or services by taking the learnings from customer reviews to heart – which will be especially vital with the sharp upturn of omnichannel engagement.

AI-Driven Knowledge Management

Indeed all form of artificial intelligence is underpinned by knowledge management. This holds true for chatbots and support agents, as well as the wider application of AI.

In conjunction with customers, AI-powered knowledge management processes identify missing documentation and highlight where it has degraded or become outdated, enabling the organisation to keep content accurate and updating it along the way; at the same time, the workflow enhances customer experience and boosts productivity.

An underlying element to this is making sure your help documents contain language that matches what users speak, so there are no gaps in communication. Like Dovetail, a tool that enables customers to search with text containing language that would appear in a conversation with another person can aid better customer self-service experiences, which in turn helps to boost customer satisfaction and lead to fewer escalations or duplicate tickets issues.

AI-Driven Personalized Support

Specialised software allows the support team to tailor personalised experiences for their customers. Using the power of smart language processing and machine learning, the software instantly answers customers’ enquiries.

Second, AI can be used to maximise efficiency, cutting down the workload for agents so they can focus on complex and high-impact issues. Take chatbots, for example. AI can be used to automate many of their functions in order to speed up the agent’s responses to easy questions.

AI which firms use to tailor customer interactions, and improve customer loyalty and revenue, should also tailor individual AI strategies for the same purpose: to provide engaging customer journeys, and build loyalty with the customer base. Firms should be transparent with customers about how they use their data, and not overstep perceived boundaries about their collection and usage patterns; otherwise, personalisation efforts can appear to be borderline predatorial. AI should augment agents, not replace them.

AI-Driven Immediacy

Following the COVID-19 pandemic, more and more organisations quickly ran to incorporate self-service options as the medium to help customers solve their problems themselves. Indeed, since contact volumes have slashed sharply for many businesses, the mantra has become ‘can we deflect this question with self-service’ – a question often answered in the affirmative, at least for most brands, with agents intervening only where the use case is more complex.

From a service model perspective, tiered customer support makes case administration more efficient and enhances customer experience by providing prompt and personalised solutions. From a branding angle, companies ensure that customers are comfortable with data collection and management, and are clear on how their privacy is protected.

But a second trend poised to endure is developing brand loyalty by standing with customer values where the customer expectations are best met through purpose-driven supply chain initiatives that engender trust in our companies. This shift further enables a customer-service leader to deliver both the much-needed human empathy as well as effective resolution of the complex problem.

AI-Driven Personalisation

In 2024, consumers will demand that a business slice through the AI fog, address them by name or provide support options based on specific prior interactions.

The focus is on personalisation through AI tools such as chatbots, a personalised web site or app, email marketing, etc. This way, if the brand employs those strategies, customer satisfaction and brand loyalty will be higher, as well as customer satisfaction and brand awareness.

Every company has to be on top of the customer service trends and best practices in order to manage their own customer service team successfully. A solution like SuperOffice Service, which provides best-in-class services like helpdesk, CRM and live chat, helps reduce the effort so that businesses can focus on offering great customer experiences and grow.