The customer support landscape is undergoing a transformation and – no surprise! - it’s thanks to the rise of generative AI.
This new tech enables the creation of AI Helpdesks which deploy AI Agent(s) - an advanced form of chatbot - to respond to customers’ questions.
AI can revolutionize how businesses interact with their customers. Companies can now provide round-the-clock assistance, effortlessly responding to any customer issue with personalized, tailored responses.
The benefits of AI helpdesk solutions are clear to see. Not only do they drastically reduce customer waiting times, but they also allow businesses to scale support operations without increasing agent numbers or impacting quality of responses.
This is because AI Agents excel at resolving large numbers of common customer issues, over and over, thereby enabling human support agents to be freed up to tackle more complex problems that require empathy and critical thinking, things that AI presently finds hard to deliver.
The secret sauce for AI Agents is their ability to be "trained" on large amounts of a business’s data, enabling accurate and personalized responses to customers' questions without making up answers, or "hallucinating" as it’s called in AI jargon. In addition, by analyzing large amounts of customer responses, AI systems can anticipate future trends and needs, making suggestions or offering solutions before they’re even requested.
The rise of AI-powered helpdesk solutions has also opened up new opportunities for businesses to input AI into workflows, as AI Agents can now be used to respond accurately to any type of customer question or issue, for negligible cost.
In this article, we'll explore the impact of AI helpdesk solutions on customer support and delve into the reasons why businesses should embrace this game-changing technology.
At the heart of this revolution is AI's ability to process and save vast amounts of data about a business and its products, and to then retrieve information relevant to a customer's specific question.
This technical name for this capability is RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation), which is the process involved in saving a business's data in a knowledge base, and extracting only relevant information that matches the content of the customer's question.
This tech is now a very successful application of AI, and this capability can be deployed in customer facing helpdesks to instantly respond to very detailed customer questions on a vast range of product and support issues.
Moreover, AI Agents deployed in helpdesks are not like the chatbots that were commonly deployed a couple of years back in some customer facing situations. Those relied on fixed workflows and decision trees, resulting in stilted replies not relevant to the topic, and more often than not, ended up with questions misunderstood or unanswered, and customers frustrated.
But all that has changed with AI Agents today. These are powered by LLMs (large language models, the same tech behind ChatGPT) from companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic, which can understand context and intent behind customer queries, allowing them to engage in more nuanced and natural dialogues. This level of sophistication enables AI helpdesks to handle increasingly complex issues with personalized recommendations, completed in a conversational tone and in any language the customer chooses.
And on the occasions that the AI Agent can't handle the customer's enquiry, for instance if it is too complex or requires specific knowledge that the Agent doesn’t have access to, it can be transferred to a human agent so they can respond directly to the customer. As all the chat history is included in the handover, context is not lost, and the process can be seamless and efficient without any of the frustrating "please repeat your question" interactions that waste time for both customer and agent.
The end result is fast, efficient and highly cost effective customer support.
It's clear that the adoption of AI helpdesk solutions can bring about substantial benefits for both businesses and their customers.
One of the most important considerations when reviewing the pros of moving to an AI Helpdesk solution is that the quality of responses provided by AI is as good as, and in many cases better than, a human agent. So customers don’t suffer from an inferior response when AI enters the chat.
This is also important when considering the reduction in response times (AI-powered chatbots and virtual agents can process and respond to customer queries almost instantaneously) and 24/7 availability.
These improvements are not achieved at the cost of poorer response quality. On the contrary, for many "standard" questions, response quality is better than a human and of course, the AI Agent never gets tired, goes for a tea break, or takes a holiday – certainly different from traditional call centres where customers can face long wait times and inconsistent responses.
Human agents are often subject to variations in knowledge, mood, or training, but AI systems deliver accurate and reliable information every time. This consistency of answering not only enhances customer satisfaction but also helps to build trust and loyalty in the brand.
In addition to consistent, fast response times, AI helpdesks are also capable of handling a much larger volume of customer inquiries simultaneously, without compromising the quality of support.
By automating the resolution of common issues, AI frees up human support agents to work on more interesting problems that require more empathy and critical thinking. For the business, this creates a better work environment and more job satisfaction for agents, and for customers, input of a human when empathy and reasoning is needed results in improved outcomes for complex cases.
A good example of real-world impact of AI Helpdesk solutions is the buy now pay later (BNPL) provider Klarna. They installed AI into their contact centre and were able to reduce their contact centre headcount by 700 agents, leading to a £40m improvement to their bottom line. Their customer service AI agent has been able to handle 70% of their customer chats, and it’s on a par with human agents for customer satisfaction scores.
They’ve also been able to reduce the total time it takes to handle a customer enquiry from 11 minutes to 2 minutes, as multiple chats can now be handled simultaneously, and don’t require a human to rotate between multiple different concurrent chats, which impacts resolution time and response quality.
One of the essential features of an AI helpdesk is its ability to deploy AI Agents over different channels, creating an omnichannel capability, thereby engaging with customers wherever it’s convenient for them.
One of the primary channels for customer enagagement is webchat - or livechat on a web site. This often serves as the primary interface for customers to interact with a business, and requires installation of a widget on the business's website to enable direct conversations from the website, or specific customer facing page.
This could be a social media page, or a specific page such as a product page, where a chat window can be embedded to encourage live chat between the customer and the AI Agent.
Other customer channels include WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram, which can also be used to proactively reach out to customers, for instance following up after an initial enquiry has been made by the customer from the business’s website.
And of course, the traditional messaging channels of SMS can be very effective for customer support type communications.
The next frontier for channel deployment of AI Agents will be via voice - but that’s a subject for a blog in its own right!
Another key feature of an AI helpdesk is the creation - or integration if it already exists - of the business's knowledge base. The knowledge base contains not just customer facing documentation, but also any other relevant data such as website contents, product datasheets, YouTube videos - any information that can be used by AI in extracting relevant product or business data to provide an accurate answer.
Modern knowledge base systems are able to process data in a wide variety of formats - text files, PDFs, word docs, audio files, service manuals, past support interactions, and increasingly product images, so the knowledge base can be truly multi modal. This capability to store varieties of data sources and formats will only increase in the future.
Many AI helpdesk solutions also incorporate sentiment analysis capabilities, which enable the system to gauge the emotional state of the customer and adjust its tone and response accordingly.
As mentioned above, a key feature for an AI Helpdesk is its ability to integrate with the business's existing sales and support teams, enabling seamless transfer of conversations when a human agent is required to take over. This can be when the AI Agent detects that the customer is not happy with the answers that they have been provided, or when a customer specifically asks for human intervention.
Human handover also requires the ability to assign the chat to the most appropriate agent, and a human’s messages to be clearly identified in the chat as sent from the support team, so the customer can clearly identify when they are chatting with a human or the AI Agent.
While the benefits of AI helpdesk solutions are undeniable, the implementation process can present several challenges that businesses need to address. One of the primary concerns is the potential resistance from customers who may be hesitant to interact with an AI-powered system, preferring to speak with a human agent instead.
To overcome this challenge, it's important to ensure that the AI Helpdesk allows easy handover to human agents, and that chats can be transferred to the most appropriately trained agent, if required.
Offering the option to seamlessly transition to a human agent can help to build trust and alleviate any concerns that customers may have.
Another challenge in implementing AI helpdesk solutions is the need for robust data management and security protocols. As these systems rely on the collection and analysis of customer data, it's essential to ensure that strict data privacy and security measures are in place to protect sensitive information and comply with relevant regulations.
Additionally, the successful implementation of an AI helpdesk solution requires a knowledge base structure that has a clear architecture and hierarchy. This can help the AI models find relevant information effectively. If this is not possible, you should at least make sure that all data sources, including past customer interactions, are up to date and clearly labelled, with relevant meta descriptions where appropriate, as this will also help sourcing relevant information for accurate customer responses.
Your data is now a very valuable asset, and also a potential differentiator, so it should be looked after!
The rise of AI helpdesk solutions has ushered in a new era of customer support, transforming the way businesses interact with their customers. By leveraging the power of artificial intelligence, companies can now provide faster, more efficient, and more personalized support, delivering an exceptional customer experience that can drive loyalty and growth.
As AI technology continues to evolve, the capabilities of AI helpdesk solutions will undoubtedly expand, enabling them to engage in more reasoned dialogues, anticipate customer needs, and proactively offer solutions to customers, enhancing the customer support experience.
For businesses looking to stay ahead of their competition, the adoption of AI helpdesk solutions should be a strategic priority. By building AI technology into the core of support operations, companies can reduce costs, improve service, and strengthen relationships with customers.
The future of customer support is undoubtedly AI-powered, and those who make the transition early will be well-positioned to out-compete their competitors in the years to come.
If you’d like further details on how an AI can impact your business’s prospects, send us an email at help@converso.io, or you can chat with us at www.converso.io.
