Better customer service with Microsoft AI technology
A major focus of Microsoft’s focus today is in improving the ways that Artificial Intelligence can improve your business. AI is a technology that excites people. It seems like something from a science fiction television program and it makes many people excited to see what the future may bring.
But, the thing about AI is that you don’t need to wait for the future to see it in action. We are already utilizing AI in multiple ways, often without even realizing it. In the Dynamics 365 fall upgrade, Microsoft has made multiple improvements to its AI technology that are designed to make your business run more smoothly.
One of the most common ways that consumers interact with AI presently is through chat bot technology. More than 2/3s of online communication between a customer and a company is done through a chat bot, often without the consumer realizing.
Despite that there remains a mistrust by some about the technology. The thinking is that it is always better to have a human agent deal with customer inquires. Humans can think, can pivot and be responsive to unexpected questions.
Chat bots are thought to be, well, robotic and customers are fearful that they’ll get caught in a “bot loop.”
Customer: “I can’t log-in to my account.”
Bot: “You can re-set your password. Follow this link.”
(follows link)
Customer: “I still can’t log into my account!”
Bot: You can re-set your password. Follow this link...”
Frustrating, right? It’s understandable that both businesses and consumers would want to avoid that aggravation.
But there’s no reason to fear this with modern chat bots like you can find integrated with D365. Today’s bot is programed to learn and be responsive to the customer’s requests. It can be programed to mimic the speech patterns of your customers and act in a natural way that will convince most people that they are talking to an actual human rep.
Need more convincing? Here are three reasons that modern chat bots can help you deliver better customer service.
No 3 – Focus on what’s important
The majority of inquiries made to a company are about a select few topics, all of which have a simple way to resolve.
Log-in issues, questions about billing and making changes to the customers basic contact information are three common things that a customer will contact a business about. All of these can easily be handled by a chat bot, often faster than a human rep could.
That, in turn, frees up your human reps to deal with more complex inquiries. Without the pressure of having to handle hundreds of inquiries in a day, the human rep can take the proper amount of time to resolve issues for customers. And, a happy customer is a repeat customer!
No 2 – 24/7/365
Human reps have a pesky need to do things like sleep, eat, take comfort breaks and go on holiday. Chat bots are not that needy.
Jokes aside, the ability to have basic inquires answered outside of regular business hours is something that most customers appreciate. They also will appreciate that more complex questions will need to be addressed within standard business hours by refreshed and supported human reps.
No 1 – Make angry customers happy again
Anyone that has worked in customer service knows that a lot of people are contacting the business when they are upset. As nice as it would be for customers to take the time to tell you how great of a job you’re doing, the reality is that most people are reaching out to fix something.
And, many are coming in hot. That’s where chat bots can play a valuable service to everyone. By having the first interaction between the angry customer and the company go through am emotionless, cold and calculated bot rather than a human rep you can start the process of de-escalating the situation immediately, without anyone getting abused.
Often the customer just needs to feel that they are being heard and that the company is willing to help. Once that’s established calmer heads often prevail and productive conversations can happen. The customer is also less likely to use abusive language towards your staff, which makes for an all around safer work environment for everyone.
Additionally, the bot can be programed to identify key words that suggest that a customer is angry and warn the human rep that is taking over the conversation before they join in. That prepares the rep and allows them to do their own work at de-escalating the situation.
That’s just a few ways that the chat bot technology you can incorporate into the D365 Fall update can benefit you.
Have more questions? Give us a call!