Time is running out for your business to be ahead of the curve with AI and automation.
Password resets, customer FAQs, inventory queries — your business might manually manage dozens of these repetitive processes at any given moment. There is a way to eliminate the time spent and the costs associated with these mundane tasks. Today, as companies establish how they’ll conduct business after the COVID-19 threat has abated, Conversational AI must be at the top of your list for new technology considerations.
“Over 35% of CIOs in the Gartner 2020 CIO survey have indicated that they have already adopted or are planning to adopt conversational platforms in the next 12 months,” according to Gartner’s 2021 Emerging Technologies: Tech Innovators in Conversational AI and Virtual Assistants report. “While many organizations have been on a digital business transformation journey in the last three years, COVID-19 further accelerated that transition, bringing it forward by two to three years at least. This is driving the demand to develop conversational AI/agent solutions that can be quickly scaled up across organizations, especially global enterprises with thousands of employees.”
If customers jam up your company’s phone lines and inboxes with easily answerable questions, if they’re experiencing long hold times, if customers are dissatisfied and eventually drop off, your business is ready to look at Conversational AI solutions. The switch to digital-first services spurred on by COVID-19 stay-at-home orders has only hastened the need to improve customer service.
Conversational AI can eliminate the need to manually handle the vast majority of questions pertaining to your product catalog. It can integrate with data systems and pull in customer information. Anything customers need to know that can be found on an FAQ page, or within an account page, can be relayed by a Conversational AI agent – and the agent can complete any required processes end-to-end.
Conversational AI Beyond Customer Service
Customer service might not be your primary problem. You may have a slow or backlogged IT operation. Maybe you need help selling products online. You might be having a difficult time validating accounts for real customers from phishing attacks. Conversational AI is especially good at improving:
- Response time on query-related tasks
- Average handle time for one-on-one chat sessions with internal or external users
- First contact resolution on all troubleshooting or service-based processes, among other skills
It's crucial that you identify the areas of your business that will benefit the most from an improvement with automation and Conversational AI. Keep in mind that Conversational AI’s ability to scale services equals more revenue, optimized processes, reduced overhead and an improved customer/employee experience.
The Sooner the Better for Conversational AI Adoption
Conversational AI does not begin yielding ROI immediately. You must carefully select the Conversational AI use cases that will be initially deployed and approach each subsequent use case with an eye toward scalability. Processes that are repeated hundreds of times each day are ideal for automation, whereas unique issues that seldom occur might be better served by human oversight working with Conversational AI agents.
The sooner you begin your Conversational AI journey, the sooner you’ll be able to reap the rewards of automation and improved efficiency. In some cases, user journeys will need to be adjusted and optimized; in other cases, Conversational AI language will need to be refined to meet your specific business goals. However, until you begin researching and experimenting with Conversational AI, you will not truly understand how valuable it can be for your business goals.
With more than 35% of CIOs having already adopted or planning to adopt AI for their business, time is running out for your business to be ahead of the curve.