Deliver exceptional support faster with AI customer service

Artificial intelligence in customer service has come a long way in the last few years alone to power modern customer experiences and improve service levels across a range of industries. What started as AI-powered chatbots that could only answer straightforward questions has blossomed into a variety of AI customer service tools that are changing the way teams operate.

Thanks to AI, human support teams can work smarter, quicker, and more efficiently than before. Many software solutions are offering AI features, making these powerful tools for customer service accessible to businesses of any size.

This post will take a closer look at AI customer service, including its benefits, types of AI in service, and how software like monday service is bringing AI to the forefront.

What is AI customer service?

AI, or artificial intelligence, is a smart technology that creates opportunities for personalized, quick, and efficient experiences in customer service. With AI customer service software, companies can easily automate workflows, send instant responses, sort through knowledge base content, and a lot more without relying on manpower or budget increases.

There are many ways AI is currently being used in service management, which we’ll get into later on in this article, but what’s important to remember is that AI isn’t meant to replace human agents, but rather assist them.

With the introduction of AI agents and AI-powered workflows, agents can work smarter, not harder, while AI does the heavy lifting when it comes to manual, repetitive tasks.

Key benefits of using AI in customer service

According to a study by Gartner, 80% of customer service and support teams are estimated to be using generative AI to improve their customer support process. When AI is at work alongside customer service teams, everybody wins: companies, customers, and employees, too. Here’s a closer look at some of the key benefits of adopting AI technologies in customer service departments.

Boosts customer satisfaction

One of the main reasons more and more companies are turning to AI in their customer service operations is that, at the end of the day, it’s improving customer satisfaction. With 24/7 service, quicker response times, and decreased wait times, service teams can meet customer expectations by implementing AI software to address complex questions throughout the customer journey in real-time.

Increases productivity

With AI taking the reigns on handling straightforward and common queries, either through a customer service chatbot or another self-help portal, customer service agents can focus their efforts elsewhere. Agents can work on solving more complex issues that require more strategy, attention, and creativity, increasing productivity overall as every customer gets the answer they’re looking for.

Enhances personalized experiences

AI isn’t only helpful when it comes to getting quick answers, but through various interactions with customers, these systems can actually learn through customer history, behavior, and preferences. Armed with a constant stream of fresh insights that come directly from customers themselves, companies can better tailor products and customer service solutions to each client’s specific needs.

Scales as needed

Some periods are busier than others, such as peak sales seasons around the holidays. To manage the increase in volume and maintain SLAs, businesses need to aggressively onboard and train new agents. However, with customer service solutions like AI-powered agents, support teams can more easily scale without drastically increasing manpower, leaving resources available where they’re most needed.

Improves employee satisfaction

According to research, 63% of contact center agents have experienced burnout, making this high-stress job a weak spot for many companies. However, agents who work alongside AI systems are likely to feel more satisfied with their jobs. By eliminating repetitive, manual, and time-consuming work, like answering customer requests for routine inquiries, agents can work on more stimulating tasks that involve critical thinking and creative problem-solving.

Streamlines operations

Another way AI can benefit customer service teams is that it provides a framework for streamlining contact center operations. With AI initially sorting tickets as they come in, it’s easier for teams to address the most urgent customer service issues sooner, avoiding escalations before they arise. Additionally, by gathering data and analytics from resolved tickets, AI customer service software can deliver custom reports that provide deep insights into areas for improvement so teams can make adjustments where needed.

10 examples of AI use cases in customer service

According to monday.com’s World of Work Report, customer support remains the sector with the lowest adoption rate of AI technologies.

Considering all the ways AI can be used to enhance both customer and employee experiences, service teams who don’t adopt artificial intelligence technologies risk falling behind their competitors. Below, we’ll look at different ways AI is used in customer service teams and how it can be adopted to gain a competitive advantage.

1. AI agents

AI agents learn from customer interactions to be able to solve customer inquiries, answer questions, and make decisions without any human intervention. This type of AI learns with every interaction, meaning it improves the more it’s used, giving your agents more time to dedicate to more complex issues that require a human touch.

2. Workflow automations

In customer service solutions, AI is used to build smart workflow automations that can help teams work smarter with fewer resources. For example, AI can automatically summarize customer conversations and incoming support tickets, making it easier for multiple agents and departments to get updated on a customer case with minimal back-and-forth.

3. Knowledge base recommendation

Agents can work faster by accessing the most relevant responses in knowledge base articles, allowing them to answer customers quickly and solve problems with greater accuracy. For companies with a wide knowledge base of help-related articles, software like monday service comes equipped with AI-powered knowledge base assistance, which can recommend database articles to you based on your actions or keywords.

4. Sentiment analysis

Through language models and conversational AI technologies like natural language processing (NLP), machine learning, and natural language understanding (NLU), companies can parse through the sentiment in each customer inquiry. This can make it easier to identify more urgent complaints or customers who are at risk of leaving, allowing agents to prioritize specific tickets and get more insight into overall customer sentiment with both a company and service levels.

5. Chatbots

AI-led chatbots operate around the clock to answer customers even when your support team isn’t working. Thanks to AI, customers can get quick answers to basic questions in their preferred language, track their orders, get updates on inventory, and even product recommendations instantly without waiting for a response.

6. Self-service solutions

Customer-facing knowledge bases, FAQs, or personalized customer portals use AI to help customers find answers to their queries. As a first step before reaching out to a human agent, these self-service solutions can reduce the quantity of inquiries support departments receive.

7. Predictive analytics

AI can use the data it gathers from customer interactions, resolved cases, and customer messages from different channels to predict customer needs. By learning more about customer behavior, AI can help alert teams to peak busy periods to make resource and workforce allocation more accurate.

8. Smart routing

With a customer service platform like monday service, AI-driven smart routing features use AI to assess the urgency, category, and department of each inquiry, routing them to the right customer support agents. This way, customers are getting faster service from the right agent or department, while agents don’t need to spend time manually sorting through incoming tickets.

9. Generative AI

Generative AI can help customer service reps improve response times with templated email responses to messages, offering replies that mimic human language to commonly asked questions. Not only that, but generative AI can also create content to fill in articles in knowledge bases so employees don’t need to spend time creating articles from scratch and can focus instead on resolving tickets.

10. Digital twins

Managers can use AI to create digital twins, or virtual models, of various business-related assets, such as customer support team formations, workflows, or approval systems. This helps managers visualize what certain changes will look like before they’re implemented, empowering them to make smarter decisions and adjustments that are informed by data.

Improve customer service with monday service AI-powered software

When it comes to customer service software, you want to make sure you’re using a platform that strikes a balance between AI functionality and customization. The solution you use should fit your team’s existing workflows and blend in seamlessly with procedures for handling tickets, escalations, or requesting approvals.

monday service is a robust platform that offers flexibility without sacrificing ease of use or functionality. As an AI-powered tool for customer service, monday service helps teams work more proactively to deliver a world-class customer support experience without adding any strain on the workforce or resources.

Let’s take a closer look at some of monday service’s standout AI features and tools for customer service.

Automated ticketing and ticket routing

monday service uses AI for its smart ticketing features. AI can instantly classify and sort incoming tickets and then route them to the right person or department, saving agents tons of time and helping them prioritize complex queries.

Agent knowledge base assistance

Agents can easily pull up knowledge base articles to address customer queries, whether it’s a refresher on a specific procedure or a walk-through for more complex customer issues. With quick access to knowledge base content, agents can provide more timely and accurate responses.

Support desk dashboard and analytics

Keep track of customer support team performance, ticket statuses, resolution times, and other metrics in one glance with a detailed and customizable dashboard. Track issues before they escalate with real-time analytics and valuable insights, and generate reports to inform high-level decision-making.

Self-service customer experiences

Empower customers to solve their issues independently with monday service’s self-help options. AI can help customers access help-related content, generate answers to common customer concerns on incoming tickets, and use AI agents to resolve issues with human intervention.

Advanced user management

Enable external users to self-register for your service portal, streamlining interactions and onboarding for organizations with multiple users.

Multi-portal support

Leverage a customizable portal builder to create and manage multiple service portals from a single platform, providing seamless support for diverse service teams.

What to consider when implementing AI in customer service

Implementing AI software in customer support departments requires careful planning to maximize efficiency while maintaining a positive experience for both customers and employees. Key considerations include:

• Data security: Ensure compliance with regulations like GDPR and CCPA by implementing encryption and access controls
• Integration with existing systems: AI should seamlessly work with your CRM software and other communication platforms
• Customer service experience: Balance automation with human support to prevent frustration and enhance customer engagements
• Ethical AI use: Train AI with diverse data sets to avoid biased or inaccurate responses
• Scalability and maintenance: Choose a solution that can scale with business growth and requires minimal intervention
• Monitor and optimize: Continuously track AI effectiveness through KPIs and customer feedback to make improvements

The future of AI customer service

As AI becomes more widely adopted in the world of customer support, technologies will continue to evolve. In the future, we can expect to see systems that are even more powerful and accurate, along with multichannel support that use AI to weave customer experiences together across different channels. With a platform like monday service, companies can benefit from advanced technology that is accessible to employees and customers of any technical background, allowing them to provide exceptional service around the clock.