Alex RaineyAlex is an experienced CTO and founder who largely focuses on all the technical areas of My AskAI, from AI Engineering, Technical Product Management and overall Platform Development.
Table of Contents
- What is Conversational AI?
- Benefits of Conversational AI for Customer Support
- 1. 24/7 Customer Support
- 2. Quicker Responses
- 3. Scalability
- 4. Keeps Information Consistent
- Implementing Conversational AI for Customer Support
- Jetlink
- My AskAI
- Kindly
- Best Practices for Utilizing Conversational AI in Customer Support
- Designing Effective Chatbot Interactions
- Continuous Improvement and Training
- Final Thoughts
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Feb 16, 2024 07:27 AM
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Feb 19, 2024
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You already know how useful artificial intelligence (AI) tools are, especially with the influence of popular tools like ChatGPT and Google Bard. Now, put them under the context of conversations and customer support.
In this article, we’ll explain what conversational AI is, how it benefits your business, and tips on how to design a customer support AI that works for you.
What is Conversational AI?
Conversational AI allows computers to understand and respond to humans as if they’re part of a natural conversation. Think of it like you’re talking to someone, except that the other “person” is composed of a screen, mouse, keyboard, and other computer components.
It can actually be broken down into two key parts:
- Natural language processing (NLP): It’s a technique where your machine tries to figure out the human’s intent, emotion, and meaning from the given prompt.
- Machine learning: After the AI understands your words, it relies on machine learning to send out a proper response. They’re trained on massive sets of data, including conversations, allowing them to learn patterns in human text.
These two pieces of technology let conversational AI understand open-ended questions (aside from those that need “yes” or “no” answers). They also allow it to maintain context throughout the conversation.
Benefits of Conversational AI for Customer Support
How you can use conversational AI to power your business’s customer support mainly varies based on your needs. However, here are some solid benefits to using it.
1. 24/7 Customer Support
Conversational AI allows your business to offer round-the-clock support regardless of time zone or holiday. This would be particularly helpful if your business operates in multiple locations. It will enable your customers to get help whenever they need it, which consequently leads to increased satisfaction and loyalty.
2. Quicker Responses
When it comes to client support, customers usually get dissatisfied due to lengthy email chains and a lot of waiting time. Conversational AI can solve this. For example, chatbots can answer FAQs and handle simple requests instantly. When more complex issues are at hand, they can escalate them to human agents without delay.
3. Scalability
AI can respond to multiple customers at once, even at scales that your current customer support team cannot handle simultaneously. This allows you to take in more support requests at a time, provide prompt responses, and increase efficiency.
Moreover, the automated responses and other efficient tasks that AI helps your team with make it easier to manage the pressure. This way, you won’t need to add new people to your staff.
4. Keeps Information Consistent
Different team members handling the same issue might provide inconsistent responses. AI helps resolve that by relying on centralized knowledge, ensuring everyone can deliver the same information.
Automated responses based on defined parameters also minimize the risk of typos, misunderstandings, or missed details, further promoting reliable information delivery.
Despite these benefits, keep in mind that the development of conversational AI has yet to reach the point where it can completely replace human support. There could always be cases that require higher levels of expertise that computers can’t provide.
So, how do you implement it in your business?
Implementing Conversational AI for Customer Support
Before trying to integrate conversational AI into your customer support, it’s crucial that you first understand what it can do for you. Here are some of its most common use cases:
- Answering frequently asked questions
- Sending out request updates
- Simplifying return/refund processes
- Recommending products or services
- Data collection
- Suggesting basic troubleshooting help
- Answering customer questions in their country’s language
AI cannot process tasks that relate to judgment and emotion—these are best handled by human support.
After understanding such limitations, here’s how you choose the right conversational AI platform for your business:
- Easy integration: AI chatbots and assistants should be easy to integrate into your website and other APIs (Salesforce, Slack, etc.). Additionally, their user interfaces should be intuitive to use.
- Good reputation: You’ll be delegating your conversational AI at the front of your business—it will represent your brand. As such, its responses should stick only to the content that you provided it with, removing the risk of inaccurate and offensive answers.
- Security: Pick a conversational AI that has little to no reported issues when it comes to data privacy. Customers want their information protected, and you need to ensure that. Check My AskAI’s security documentation.
- Reporting capabilities: Make sure that your conversational AI can provide you with good reports. By leveraging various metrics, you know how to improve your AI’s responses, how it integrates into your team, and other considerations.
- Pricing: AI with good features often comes with a reasonable price. Weigh the costs against the benefits, and opt for one that suits your business’s current finances.
Jetlink
If you’re familiar with big brands like Toyota, Nissan, Lexus, and UPS, you might be surprised to know that they used Jetlink to build their AI chatbots. Just check out their platforms, and if you want to build one like theirs, Jetlink might be worth considering.
Features:
- Omnichannel support (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and more)
- Three-layer NLP engine
- Multi-language support
- Analytics for both chatbots and conversational AI
Pricing: Available upon request
My AskAI
If you’re looking for affordable but effective AI-powered customer support for your business, My AskAI might be the one for you. With its easy-to-use AI builders, it allows you to create interactive chatbots even without having a deep foundation in program development.
The best thing about it? You can quickly integrate My AskAI into your website with just a single line of code.
Features:
- Logo customization and color palette
- Auto-syncing of your website content, including all edits and modifications, every week
- Insights dashboard (auto-generated and sorted by topic)
- Integration with Slack, Zapier, and more
Pricing:
- Free — Up to 50 conversations per month.
- Essentials — $13.30 per month. Up to 200 conversations.
- Pro — $66 per month. Up to 1000 conversations. Slack, Zapier, and other app add-ons.
- Enterprise — Available upon request.
Kindly
Kindly would be a good choice for those looking for simple but potent AI chatbots for their businesses. One thing to like about it is that it offers ready-to-use chatbots that need little customization. It integrates with platforms like Zendesk and HubSpot.
Features:
- Multi-language support
- Forms for an easier and more structured data collection
- Intuitive bot builders
- Data insights
Pricing: Available upon request
Best Practices for Utilizing Conversational AI in Customer Support
Regardless of your platform, here are a few best practices to apply to ensure that your conversational AI remains beneficial for your business.
Designing Effective Chatbot Interactions
When building your AI-powered chatbot, your first and most important step is to understand what your customers need. Think about the following:
- What problems do they commonly encounter?
- Do you already have an FAQ section or blogs where your customers can find answers to basic queries?
- How long does it take for your customers to get their requests answered?
Once you answer these questions, you can now do these design best practices:
- Set clear expectations for your AI chatbot’s capabilities. Display right away what it can and cannot do on its opening interface. Also, provide users with the option to speak to human support.
- Offer multiple interaction options. For example, offer users the option to change the conversation language. Alternatively, let them choose between text, voice, or other modes.
- Ensure accessibility. Make sure that people with disabilities can use your chatbot.
- Provide clear choices. Present users with well-defined options instead of open-ended questions. This would be especially useful if you already have an FAQ page or knowledge base.
- Integrate your AI with relevant systems. Connect it to databases, knowledge bases, and other resources that will help it answer your customer’s questions.
Don’t forget to disclose that the users are interacting with an AI to avoid misleading them. Also, ensure that user data is collected and used ethically and responsibly.
Continuous Improvement and Training
It’s crucial that you train your conversational AI on industry-specific knowledge. Particularly, train them on information that your business offers and works with. Think of why you can’t use ChatGPT or Bard for customer support (they’re too consumer-focused and generalized).
After training your AI, keeping its source datasets up-to-date would be your next crucial step. This involves training it on newer data, tracking performance metrics, and more. This way:
- Your AI can understand any changes in slang, idioms, and online expressions.
- It can accurately predict user preferences and expectations (by leveraging user feedback).
- False and misleading information is minimized.
Final Thoughts
Conversational AI is making waves in the customer support industry. While it’s incapable of completely replacing human support when it comes to decision-making, it allows businesses like yours to deliver prompt responses and ensure better customer satisfaction at lower costs.
More and more businesses are integrating conversational AI into their websites. Start creating yours with My AskAI today.
Written by
Alex Rainey
Alex is an experienced CTO and founder who largely focuses on all the technical areas of My AskAI, from AI Engineering, Technical Product Management and overall Platform Development.
