Skeptical about AI customer service? For Estee Lauder, AI customer service software handles 70% of customer inquiries, routes conversations to appropriate service agents when necessary and effectively handles anything from order returns to professional advice. Don't worry, though, it's not the sci-fi horror case of robots taking over.

The awesome results of AI customer communication management (that we talk about below) are possible when you use AI with people, not instead of.

Let us dispel any doubts you may have about AI customer service with practical use cases, solutions to common challenges and real-life examples of implementation. We'll finish with a tool recommendation you can implement right away to ace your communications and boost your customer service teams' results.

What is AI customer service?

AI customer service is simply – using artificial intelligence technologies to enhance and streamline all aspects of customer conversations. It often incorporates machine learning and natural language processing to handle various aspects of customer service interactions, from automated responses to data analysis – you name it.

Some key components of AI customer service software include smart chatbots, virtual assistants and predictive analytics. These technologies work alongside human representatives to improve customer service quality and efficiency, personalize customer experiences and resolve issues more quickly.

AI customer service: 6 use cases

We know that can sound like gibberish at first glance, so let us illustrate exactly what this technology can do with AI customer communication management software use cases.

Responding to customer inquiries instantly

Customer service automation software’s AI capabilities, such as chatbots and virtual assistants, boost customer engagement in real time by understanding and responding to questions using natural language processing (NLP). These systems can handle diverse queries, from basic FAQs to more complex issues, providing immediate assistance without human intervention. Additionally, AI can suggest relevant replies to human agents during live chats, speeding up response times and ensuring consistency in communication.

Organizing and analyzing customer conversations

While you could probably use ChatGPT to help you with conversational AI and answering individual questions, it's not the same as having AI omnichannel customer support software.

Systems that include AI-powered unified inboxes automatically tag conversations based on content and context, making it easier to categorize, prioritize and later analyze customer queries. Such tools also summarize lengthy conversations, providing customer support agents with concise overviews that allow them to instantly understand customer issues instead of having to read through the whole chat.

The future of AI in customer service is sentiment analysis, though, which is when AI evaluates the tone and emotion of customer messages, reading between the lines. This helps agents gauge customer satisfaction and urgency and identify customer pain points, even when they haven't been expressed directly. This combination of an organized and analytical approach maximizes efficiency and quality.

Using chatbots to provide 24/7 support

As opposed to human support agents, who work for a fixed number of hours and enjoy holiday breaks, AI bots can handle customer queries around the clock, offering instant responses regardless of the time or date. They can answer common questions, guide users through troubleshooting steps and even process transactions, all at 3 AM on Christmas morning. With the constant presence of automated customer support, chatbots ensure that customers receive timely help whenever necessary. This is particularly valuable for support teams juggling clients from all over the world.

Anticipating customer needs with predictive analytics

The predictive analytics aspect of AI technology anticipates customer needs, leading to improved retention, loyalty and repeat purchases. How, you ask?

This modern technology analyzes historical data and customer behavior to identify patterns and predict future actions based on similar ones that already happened. It enables businesses to address potential issues before they arise, recommend products or services customers likely need and accurately personalize marketing efforts. For example, an AI system might anticipate when someone is likely to run out of a product they order regularly and send them a timely reminder (maybe with a discount) encouraging them to replenish it.

Analyzing customer data for more personalized interactions

The best conversational AI platforms on the market can help you understand more about your clients than you thought was possible. They analyze customer data to create more personalized interactions, significantly improving the customer experience. By leveraging information such as purchase history, on-site behavior and previous interactions, this technology can tailor recommendations and communications to individual preferences, without asking clients directly what those are.

For instance, AI can suggest similar or complementary products based on a customer’s past purchases or browsing patterns. Say someone recently bought a cozy bathrobe, AI may propose PJs in a similar color or a home spa set, all to make the shopping experience more relevant and enticing. This level of personalization accurately meets customers' needs and builds a stronger relationship between the customer and the brand.

Automating ticket routing

Machine learning algorithms and natural language processing allow AI systems to analyze the context of each customer query and determine the best course of action based on the conversation theme, level of complexity and customer sentiment. Programs that leverage these technologies automate ticket routing by efficiently categorizing and directing conversations to the appropriate department or agent.

This reduces the time spent on ticket sorting and ensures that the most qualified personnel addresses each issue. As a result, customers experience faster resolution times, and agents can spend their time and brainpower more effectively, i.e., on resolving complex customer cases rather than organizational tasks.

Common AI customer support challenges & solutions

Like any invention, the new kid on the customer services block – AI, raises some judgmental eyebrows. Let us address some common doubts about implementing this technology into your customer service platform.

• Lack of human touch: Do you feel that AI lacks the empathy and understanding of a human customer service agent, leading to frustration? Good AI customer service solutions can be programmed to master the language of customer service – convey a consistently respectful, friendly tone, unwavered by human emotions. Moreover, they use customer data to make all interactions personalized. Some feature a super-smooth transition from bot to human agents, where queries require more emotional intelligence. They give agents all the necessary context to take over the issue seamlessly.
• Data quality: AI systems rely heavily on data – true – and poor-quality data can lead to inaccurate responses and a subpar customer experience – also true. However, AI learns and adapts over time, continuously improving its responses as it processes more customer interactions and feedback. You can also input all your relevant company data to ensure its replies are reliable. Plus, a machine is less prone to human error than, well, humans.
• Implementation: Some feel deploying AI in customer service can be complex and time-consuming, often requiring significant changes to existing systems and processes. That's why you should pick a solution that only takes a few clicks to set up (yes, those exist) and learns as you use it, becoming more sophisticated over time.
• Integration: There's nothing worse than having your data and toolset all over the place. The best AI customer service tools feature omnichannel integration across messaging apps, social media, email and SMS, ensuring better consistency and quality than possible with manual replies.
• Privacy and security: AI systems work with sensitive customer data, raising concerns about privacy and security. However, many advanced encryption methods protect this information. Choose a tool that complies with GDPR, HIPAA or CCPA privacy regulations. You can also implement strict access controls and monitoring to protect against unauthorized access to sensitive information.
• Cost: Yes, good AI customer support programs are paid solutions. However, they bring major time savings in the long run, which is intrinsically linked to cost savings.

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How can our AI customer support software help?

85% of executives say implementing AI in direct customer conversations is their immediate plan. Ignoring this customer service trend means you get left behind, offering a subpar customer service experience.

A good place to start your adventure with AI customer service is Glassix – the top-rated omnichannel AI customer support and messaging platform. It combines conversational AI and the GPT-4 engine to create an all-powerful, unified inbox with natural language understanding and smart, data-based bot replies.

First of all, you can sign up for free. Following the trial period, you pay only for your number of users (with up to a 20% discount for annual subscriptions), no matter how many conversations you lead, unlike other vendors that charge you per messaging volume.

Secondly, Glassix's AI-powered inbox is truly omnichannel. It has a WhatsApp integration, Apple Messages for Business, social media channels, email, SMS and more, keeping all your conversation history in one place and allowing you to switch between platforms easily.

Here's the full list of what you're getting with Glassix:

• Omnichannel chatbot and AI inbox: Glassix integrates with 15+ customer touchpoints. This gives you a practical, all-in-one inbox with a unified history and your customers – consistent service and continuity across all channels.
• Conversational AI: The platform uses the powerful GPT-4 engine and conversational and generative AI capabilities to understand customer intent and respond to queries in a human-like manner.
• Drag-and-drop (no code) chatbot flow builder: Even without technical experience, you can build chatbot flows in Glassix and launch them in minutes, enriching your bots with smart reply sequences. You can use our templates for specific business needs and customer scenarios to speed up this process or personalize them.
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• Auto-suggested replies: The tool improves agent productivity by helping them to answer clients faster with real-time prompts for accurate responses.
• Automatic conversation tagging: Our engine understands the context of conversations and tags them according to the theme. This helps keep all your communication organized and prioritized. Plus, it's much easier to find specific interactions later.
• Seamless bot to human handoff (and vice versa): The program generates conversation summaries with a single click to help agents understand customer inquiries and take off where a higher level of empathy or knowledge is needed. All handoffs are handled without any disruptions in tone or time to help increase customer satisfaction levels.
• Conversation routing: Customize routing rules for customer service tasks to get assigned to the most qualified people on your team automatically.
• File sharing: Glassix supports rich media communication with videos, images, voice messages, documents and anything else you or your customers might need to send.
• Automated reporting and BI: Excel-based reporting, report scheduling and Microsoft power-BI, all in a customizable dashboard updated in real time.
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Plus, if you have some technical knowledge (or someone on your team does), you can customize, personalize and build on top of our platform to create the digital customer service platform of your dreams.

AI customer support examples with Glassix

We realize it can all sound too good to be true – we also like to see proof of bold claims. Take a look at how Glassix helped these companies improve customer service with awesome results.

Holmes Place

Holmes Place handles over 140,000 club members and was struggling to keep up with all the digital messaging and social media channels where their customers reach out to them. Glassix helped them unify all messaging. The chatbot responds instantly, tags the conversation to the appropriate brand and provides all necessary information. This solution took over 35% of customer calls, significantly reducing customer service agents' burden and customer wait time.

Bezeq

Bezeq, Israel's largest Telecom company, reached out to Glassix for us to enhance their customer experience. They managed to adapt to challenging market demands with custom conversation scripts and business rules you can set up in Glassix. We helped solve multiple issues connected to this aspect:

• Streamlined customer interactions (e.g., guiding clients through router activation or solving frequent technical difficulties)
• Better self-service options with interactive FAQs, guides and tutorials
• Advanced technical support with proactive scheduling of technician visits
• Operational autonomy of an agile platform that Bezeq tailored to their needs
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Here are the results in numbers:

• 35% of technical inquiries successfully addressed by the bot
• 5% lower manpower requirements, leading to higher operational efficiency and cost savings
• 24/7 support for clients, even during agents' off-hours
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Estee Lauder

Estee Lauder is one of the world's leading care and beauty companies that needs no introduction. Since they operate in over 150 countries and offer thousands of products, it's clear they needed a unified customer service model and a way to track the customer journey across multiple digital touchpoints.

Glassix does all that while also integrating with their CRM system. The implementation and transition were super smooth, with over 70% of customer questions now coming in through automated digital channels instead of a traditional call center.

Hertz

Hertz, the largest car rental and digital fleet management company in the world, services over 11,500 rental stations across 170 countries. Seeing a shift among the younger generation of digital natives, they say they need to focus on instant messaging support alongside their phone service.

Since cooperating with Glassix, Hertz now services hundreds of thousands of customers more efficiently than they thought was possible. Clients can now make car rental reservations in a few clicks with the Glassix Live Chat widget on the company's website. This reduces wait times, improves satisfaction by eliminating the need to call and allows Hertz to service more customers daily than before implementing Glassix AI customer service tools.

Here's a direct customer feedback quote from the Hertz team about our cooperation.

Ready to transform your customer service with AI?

Like the sound of that? As you can see, AI can give a huge boost to your omnichannel customer support strategies and their implementation. But it's not enough to know that – you also need to know how to do it.

That's where Glassix comes in. It's easy to start using it and connect it to all your messaging sources. The platform then streamlines all aspects of your customer communications, from leading the conversations itself to human handoff and analytics.

Sign up for a 30-day free trial with access to all Glassix features.

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FAQs

How is AI used for customer service?

AI in customer service can automate routine tasks, provide instant responses through chatbots, analyze customer data for insights, personalize interactions, and assist human representatives by providing relevant information and suggestions during customer interactions.

Is AI replacing customer service?

No, AI is certainly not replacing customer service; instead, it complements support agents, freeing up their time to focus on more complex issues and deliver higher-quality customer care.

What is generative AI in customer service?

Generative AI in customer service involves using AI models like GPT-4 to understand and create human-like responses to customer queries with personalized assistance.

What is AI chatbot customer service?

This form of customer service uses AI-powered chatbots to interact with customers, answer common questions, resolve issues, and provide support around the clock, improving response times and transferring customers to customer service teams for more complex issues.

How has AI improved customer service?

AI has improved customer service by increasing efficiency, providing 24/7 support, personalizing customer interactions, and reducing wait times, resulting in higher customer satisfaction.

Can you use ChatGPT for customer service?

Yes, you can use ChatGPT for customer service to handle inquiries and provide detailed responses. Glassix uses the powerful GPT-4 engine to handle conversations but also includes additional useful tools like a centralized conversation hub, flow builders, conversation history and tagging, and more.