Tony Stark’s trusted Man Friday, is in reality not a man at all! J.A.R.V.I.S or Jarvis, a complex artificial intelligence powered computing system, is Stark’s “manager”, a word that is only an analogy one can make—for Jarvis controls everything for his master; his home, his Iron Man suit, his security protocols, even doubling up as Stark’s best friend and confidante, if the need be.
While Jarvis was only science fiction not too long ago, the reality of artificial intelligence has become increasingly prominent. As these cognitive digital assistants get better, so does their strength in handling complex natural language queries that cut across application. The impact of this growth is of utmost pertinence in the field of customer service.
Evolving Customer Service
The current turn of events have called for pretty much all websites—be it in banking, telecom, insurance, retail or tourism—to have a customer queries section that connects with customers directly, to chat with them and answer questions and resolve issues. In spite of this, there exists a gap between the customer service provider and the customer, causing customer dissatisfaction. According to reports from IBM, 270 Billion customers make calls worldwide every year and 60% of these issues go unresolved.
Following are some pitfalls of existing customer service.
- Large ongoing staff training.
- Linking customer queries to the right representative can be a time consuming process, and can test a customer’s time and patience.
- Reduction in sharing information and customer services. Sometimes the customer may need to repeat the same query twice to the agents he contacts in order to get his query resolved.
- Customer service may go offline, and cost and the chance for responses to the customer queries can get delayed
This is where the role of AI powered cognitive digital assistance as a solution begins.
The Role of Virtual Agents in the Customer Service
Virtual Agent is a self-service tool modeled by Artificial Intelligence, which acts as a chat agent on websites by automating interactions with customers. It can interact with customers by handling queries and responding to grievances to some extent. Though they cannot be considered as a full replacement to the traditional call centre executives, they can still be considered as a first point of contact on website support customer care system.
Features of Virtual Agents
- Quick and instant answers to customer queries
- No offline problem
- Understands customers’ language based on natural language processing
- NLP helps to identify what the agent is exactly looking for and provides accurate and quick responses
- CRM integration is possible
- Agents can track their own statistics such as Session Start Time, Number of Calls Handled.
- Quick resolution to problems
- 100% customer satisfaction is possible
- Easily connects to live chat
Therefore, time has come to adopt virtual agents in customer service and utilize its features to enhance customer support and gain customer satisfaction.
