At Assist Scout, we consider nice buyer help is greater than offering right data. It’s about creating connections, demonstrating empathy, making proactive solutions to maneuver prospects ahead, and extra.
AI may be one instrument in an incredible buyer help system and AI might help customer support groups do higher work — however it would by no means completely substitute human brokers.
On this article, we’ve collected 11 examples of firms efficiently utilizing AI for customer support to enhance their groups’ skills and make them more practical than ever.
1. Airbnb
The world of customer support chatbots may be divided into two teams: chatbots which can be powered by AI and chatbots that aren’t.
You’ll normally acknowledge chatbots that use AI, as a result of they’re surprisingly good at understanding and responding to buyer questions. Chatbots that don’t leverage AI are a lot less complicated and extra structured — they comply with pre-defined guidelines to work together with and lead customers by a call tree. Sadly, even AI chatbots usually fail to supply related data until prospects use the “proper” immediate, which may trigger some odd agreements.
Airbnb demonstrates what an expertise with conversational AI in customer support needs to be: clear, easy, and informative. The perfect half is that it doesn’t purposely make connecting prospects with a human agent arduous. For those who don’t get the assist you want by self-service, reaching somebody is straightforward.
One of these AI chatbot is de facto good at letting prospects self-serve whereas companies can cut back help prices, enhance effectivity, and improve satisfaction.
2. Wanderlog app
For those who’ve ever needed to set up an extended journey, you know the way a lot time goes into it. It’s virtually a full-time job: studying journey blogs and guides, discovering the very best locations to eat or keep, and determining the right way to get from A to B.
Wanderlog is a useful little app that helps you propose and set up your journey. It comes with an fascinating AI function that makes use of ChatGPT’s huge knowledge to behave as a journey agent, offering suggestions and tips about actions and even organizing your each day itineraries.
Through the use of a generative AI bot, Wanderlog makes it enjoyable and simple for vacationers to get suggestions, discover actions, and discover journey help with quick, detailed solutions with out having to succeed in out to a customer support agent.
3. Delta Airways
Whereas low-cost airways have historically targeted on value, Delta Airways has been making an attempt to compete by providing an incredible buyer expertise. At a convention in 2023, Delta’s CEO, Ed Bastian, defined how AI helps their help groups be extra environment friendly by making data simpler to seek out.
“We’re working with our reservations staff to attempt to assist our reservations brokers parse the historic insurance policies and questions and issues that you could be name into an actual agent,” he defined.
An instance of this in follow is when a passenger calls with a query about touring with a pet. Utilizing AI, the customer support rep can shortly entry a solution from a procedural guide.
This sort of data has traditionally been obtainable in assist facilities and FAQs, however Delta’s working to make it extra accessible to name middle brokers. “Folks go on and are on maintain for 5 minutes ready for a solution; they need to solely be on maintain for 5 seconds,” Bastian mentioned. “That is what AI can do, and that is one of many first functions that we’re deploying.”
4. TransferGo
Whereas English is usually thought-about the language of worldwide enterprise, solely one in 5 individuals really communicate it. Providing multi-language help is essential for companies, as 75% of consumers usually tend to return if help is of their language.
TransferGo, a world cash switch firm that lets individuals ship cash shortly, is now utilizing AI to supply multilingual chat automation to their prospects. The corporate makes use of a digital agent fluent in 11 completely different languages.
Utilizing AI, their multilingual digital agent reliably and shortly handles self-serve intents, akin to altering names, addresses, or telephone numbers in 11 languages.
5. Intuit Credit score Karma
Credit score Karma has been serving to individuals take cost of their funds for years. The app consists of credit score rating monitoring, bank card and mortgage suggestions, entry to your credit score report, and solutions on the right way to enhance your monetary life.
In 2024, Intuit launched a generative AI assistant throughout its complete suite of apps, together with Credit score Karma, designed to supply its prospects with a linked expertise that takes a holistic view of their funds and enterprise objectives to supply extra personalised help.
Within the case of Credit score Karma, Intuit Assistant can reply customers’ monetary questions round private spending and saving, inform customers about bank card reward optimization, and assist them apply for traces of credit score for which they’ve good approval odds. The AI additionally gives insights into monetary tendencies, their impression on credit score, and immediate solutions to assist customers dig deeper if they’re .
Whereas Intuit Assistant is extra of a product function than a help innovation, having a instrument obtainable to reply primary monetary questions surrounding the person’s credit score, spending, and shopping for energy will seemingly hold these forms of points out of the help queue, giving the staff extra time to give attention to duties like product help and buyer suggestions.
6. Assist Scout
At Assist Scout, we’re proud to make use of our AI options to enhance our prospects’ experiences whereas serving to our staff work extra effectively and successfully. Nevertheless, a few of our AI writing help options, AI Drafts particularly, have even benefitted individuals past our help staff.
Each staff member, from our engineers to our advertising and marketing staff to our CEO, spends time responding to actual prospects within the Assist Scout queue. Whereas we’re all accustomed to our product, it may possibly nonetheless be a bit scary for individuals who is probably not used to working immediately with prospects.
AI Drafts is a instrument obtainable in Assist Scout that may generate responses to incoming conversations based mostly on knowledge inside your account, akin to dialog histories and information base content material. It’s made an enormous distinction with regards to rising consolation within the queue.
Kristi Ernst Thompson, one among our senior technical help specialists, says, “AI Drafts have made Entire Firm Assist really feel lots much less daunting. Our help staff at all times encourages everybody to truth examine and revise drafts in order that they’re written in their very own voice, however we’ve discovered this provides them an incredible jumping-off level.”
There generally is a certain quantity of tension that comes with looking at a clean web page, and AI Drafts makes it just a bit bit simpler to get everybody within the inbox and serving to prospects.
7. IKEA
Making a “fast go to to IKEA” isn’t a factor — and that’s very true in case you want inside design assist. Now, with IKEA’s AI room planning instrument, customers can velocity up the design course of.
IKEA prospects can use the AI instrument to create their designs when it’s handy for them quite than spending prolonged periods on the telephone or in individual with a customer support affiliate.
Previous to utilizing this AI know-how, IKEA prospects had to spend so much of effort and time to design their areas. Utilizing AI know-how makes that course of far simpler and extra handy, and it additionally decreases the probability of future returns and dissatisfied prospects.
8. Spotify
As talked about earlier, probably the most difficult points for companies is supporting prospects throughout languages and cultures whereas preserving working prices in examine. It’s usually inconceivable to workers groups which can be utterly fluent, each linguistically and culturally, for all your service areas.
Streaming large Spotify has tapped into generative AI to assist present international help at scale. They make the most of real-time translation software program to acknowledge and translate buyer messages into the help agent’s language immediately, all whereas retaining cultural nuance. This alternative permits any member of their staff to reply to any query, no matter their geographic location or language proficiency.
Since implementing the know-how, Spotify has been capable of increase their service to 24/7 help and preserve a 90%+ CSAT rating.
9. Uber
AI-powered sentiment evaluation instruments can analyze buyer suggestions to gauge prospects’ sentiments and feelings. This helps companies perceive and deal with considerations in actual time earlier than they turn into issues.
Uber makes use of AI know-how to measure the effectiveness of their methods. For instance, after rolling out a brand new rider app, Uber used AI to determine sad customers and used suggestions to handle points within the app earlier than they grew to become a serious downside. This strategy will get upstream of your customer support staff, enabling you to repair points earlier than your help inbox will get slammed with offended prospects.
10. Doordash
Gig financial system platforms are an uncommon use case with regards to customer support. Most companies solely have to help one sort of person, whereas firms like Doordash have to supply service to as many as three completely different events: the service provider, the supply driver (Dasher), and the shopper who locations an order.
This may be difficult as a result of the kind of care it’s good to present for every could be very completely different. As an illustration, within the case of Dashers and prospects, questions of safety generally is a large concern. To assist present a safer expertise for Dashers, Doordash has rolled out SafeChat+, an AI-powered function designed to create a safer driver expertise by stopping abuse and harassment.
If the AI detects verbal abuse within the chat, it offers the Dasher the choice to unassign themselves from the supply, or, if the order is full, it ends the chat to stop additional harassment. Doordash’s belief and security staff then opinions the conversations and appropriately handles any conditions the place firm insurance policies have been violated.
The objective in customer support is usually to cut back contact quantity, however on this case, by introducing AI sentiment monitoring to the chat expertise, Doordash is definitely rising their consciousness of the problems that Dashers face. Relating to problems with security, that’s a superb factor.
11. Warby Parker
Selecting new frames is each the very best and worst a part of sporting glasses. It may be enjoyable to modify issues up a bit, however deciding what appears to be like proper in your face may be robust. That is very true when purchasing to your eyewear on-line. In individual, you’ll be able to strive frames on and see whether or not they work, however once you’re simply taking a look at an image on a display, it may be more durable to inform.
Traditionally, Warby Parker has combatted this downside by bringing the showroom to you. Shoppers are in a position to pick 5 frames and have them shipped to their dwelling to assist them make your best option earlier than shopping for. However even that isn’t good. What if none of them are proper? Then it’s good to do the whole dwelling try-on course of once more, which takes time.
To unravel this problem, Warby Parker took an analogous strategy to IKEA by inventing a digital try-on function that folks can use both by the cellular app, or, when you have a webcam, through your pc. The expertise makes use of augmented actuality (AR) to position digital variations of frames in your face. As well as, the corporate additionally makes use of AI to assist suggest frames which may fit your options and private style.
Whereas these options don’t precisely replicate the in-person purchasing expertise, the tech can provide you a greater thought of which frames are value including to your house try-on order. It may additionally, in flip, cut back customer support quantity by preserving suggestion requests out of the queue and limiting the quantity of returns seemingly brought on by individuals overestimating their skill to rock a pair of cat eyes.
Optimize your customer support with AI
As synthetic intelligence quickly evolves, it’s apparent that it has many use circumstances in customer support. It’s particularly related when utilized strategically to automate repetitive or tedious duties, liberating up buyer help brokers to do extra impactful work.
Within the examples we’ve seen, firms have efficiently applied AI to enhance the work of human brokers and to enhance the broader buyer expertise.
One factor is crystal clear: The advantages of AI are extremely depending on how thoughtfully you combine AI into your customer support instruments and processes.
