We’re all looking for ways we can help our employees improve their performance and reach their targets. It’s certainly no different within customer service. With high levels of staff turnover, the need to shift operations to remote working, and challenges with motivation and productivity, customer success departments certainly have areas where artificial intelligence can make a big impact.

In this post, we’ll explain why it’s important to upgrade your customer service team with AI technology and provide 5 ways to do that.

Why upgrade your support agents with Artificial Intelligence (AI)?

Optimizing the way your customer support agents work can allow big savings and a much-improved experience for your customers. We’ve all heard the statistic about keeping an existing customer being cheaper than gaining a new one, haven’t we? Simply put, the success of your business will come down to whether your customer experience is a positive one or not. That’s where Artificial Intelligence comes in. Good AI solutions offer time-saving and performance-enhancing features that help unleash the potential of your customer service agents.

So now we know AI can make a big impact on your customer service staff and, therefore, your customers. Next, let’s find out how you can use artificial intelligence to upgrade your customer experience.

Ways to help your customer support agents with AI

1. Release time‍

Time: we all want more of it. In customer service, we are always hunting for ways to resolve customer requests faster, so we're able to help more customers. AI can dramatically reduce the amount of time spent on tasks that humans shouldn’t have to do. Tiresome jobs like searching for information in company documents can be a thing of the past when you adapt AI into your processes. Moreover, the answers will be delivered faster, meaning less time to resolve the questions the customer might have.

Some companies employ AI first-line support tools that instantly answer questions easily answerable by a machine. These free up more time for agents to deal with more complex customer requests. They can also cover out-of-hours questions, releasing more time during business hours.

‍2. Give them better answers‍

‍‍AI can also significantly boost the quality of customer service representatives answers. AI tools for customer support can search through customer information and knowledge and deliver accurate and relevant answers based on the original customer question. This means that, far from replacing them, Artificial Intelligence is actively improving human performance. This trend, where businesses use the best of human skills like empathy combined with the capabilities of AI, will become commonplace in many different departments within organizations.‍

3. Help them work remotely‍

‍‍We don’t need to spell it out. In 2021, it was more obvious than ever that having the option to have your customer service teamwork away from the office. An AI solution that allows your team to work from anywhere is a brilliant addition to your technology suite and an intelligent investment in a world where remote working is becoming more common and necessary.

Read more: How to manage a remote customer service team ‍

4. Better onboarding‍

‍Mercer's research found that the turnover for customer service employees is 27% annually, the highest in the business world. So the importance of swift staff onboarding could not be more evident. AI solutions that deliver the answers to your new employee in a timely manner as the customer questions come in are a great way to help the employee learn on the job. This way, they can start working and have AI's “safety net” to deliver the right answers. Raffle Workplace Search cuts onboarding time without jeopardizing the customer experience.

‍5. Measure their performance

‍AI can also help you analyze your customer support team’s performance. Are they meeting your internal KPIs? Are they providing the right answers to your questions? Are they making the customer experience as good as it can be? Having an analytics dashboard that tracks your customer service employees’ activity is a great way to get the very best out of them. In an age where data is king, artificial intelligence is a fantastic way to make sure you have the right numbers on your employees.

Final thoughts: AI and customer support agents

In summary, AI can now do the following for your customer agents:

• Save them time
• Make them more knowledgeable
• Help them train on the job
• Help them work remotely
• Analyze their performance.

Employing Artificial intelligence (AI) to optimize the performance of your customer support agents is no longer just a “nice to have” option for your business. It’s crucial to ensure your customer experience is as good as possible.

Discover your agents' new best buddy

Find out how Raffle Workplace Search can enhance the brilliant work your support team does every day. Connect with us below.

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