As the term suggests, Blended AI is a fusion of Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutions and human involvement or the power of human touch. With the emergence of AI in the customer service sector, businesses are trying to use more technology and automation in order to minimize contact center support costs. But companies should not totally rely on technologies for customer support, as AI-powered solutions like chatbots, self-service, etc. cannot always solely provide solutions to customer issues. Thus companies should not consider AI as a “set it and forget it” technology, especially in customer service. That why a growing number of organizations are adopting a strategic combination of AI solutions and the human touch of live customer support agents.
Sometimes customers find it more comfortable to share an issue with an agent rather than AI-powered virtual support. This happens because AI technology lacks human sympathy. But human sympathy plays a major role in customer service. So a blend of AI with a live agent will enable a business to get the maximum benefits from this promising technology. As human involvement is present, blended AI will not at all hamper customer satisfaction. For example, an agent can chat with multiple customers simultaneously with an AI-powered chatbot.
Again with the adoption of automation, agents will get rid of repetitive work. Bots automate simple tasks like sharing FAQs with customers. It can also separate queries that are not solvable by itself and forward it to the available agent precisely. Another benefit of human involvement sliced with technology is the use of the knowledge base by support agents. An AI-powered knowledge base can also be used by agents during customer interaction. So a blended AI makes the process smooth. In other words, it up to level customer support agents’ skills and enables them to focus on high-value interactions.
Hence companies should affiliate blended AI into their customer service program. This will enable companies to provide satisfactory customer support while getting the advantages of AI at its utmost level.
Today’s customer expects a lot. They want to know what’s the best gadget, outfit, hairdresser, toothbrush, and they want to have their questions about the product or service answered in detail even at 2 AM, in real-time. But that’s not all. They want their questions answered at real fast.
If any of their queries are too complex for the bot they are interacting with, they demand a seamless transfer to a human agent, who has been updated with all the information they gave the chatbot.
So, what’s a human customer service representative to do with these superhuman demands for ultra convenience that today’s customers place upon them?
The answer is that they are leveraging powerful AI to assist them with the customer journey. Today’s AI allows companies to automate their common customer journeys, handing the tedious, repetitive tasks over to bots. This frees up the human agent’s time to answer the more complex queries that the bots aren’t capable of handling. AI helps out customer reps in many other ways, too. It assists in seamless transfers to human agents when necessary. And by seamless, that means that not only does the AI ensure the customer is passed to the correct agent and does it hang around until the connection is made, but it also leverages what it’s learned throughout the customer interaction and past customer interactions and info in the CRM, and passes the knowledge along to the human agent, to ensure the most personalized customer experience possible.