Unfortunately, the experience of being lost in a voice-prompt maze, or being routed from agent to agent without a resolution, is all too common. Ninety-one percent  of customers part ways with a company after just one bad experience.¹ To prevent such defections, organizations are creating customer service experiences in which questions get answered, problems are resolved and needs are met—in the shortest amount of time and in the least number of steps, calls or clicks.

The IBM series, “Rethink & Automate,” invites leaders to reimagine common business and IT processes by approaching them from a greenfield perspective and embracing AI and automation. We asked John Thomas, Vice President and Data & AI Practice Lead at IBM Expert Labs, to describe what a customer service experience would look like if he were to design it for a new company. He outlines three approaches for designing a winning customer service experience using AI and automation.

Start with self-service

A lot of the questions that come in from customers can be handled through self-service channels, which is why many organizations have invested in call center technologies, IVR systems and the like. Thomas explains it’s probably the easiest and quickest way to start—and, when done right, can achieve quantifiable value. For example, an IBM study shows that companies that used a virtual agent were able to contain 64% of queries and reduce agent handle time by 4 minutes on average.²

Use AI as a matchmaker

When a live agent is needed to resolve a query, you should be able to route it to the agent most qualified to address the specific problem. This is where you can use AI as a matchmaker, connecting incoming inquiries to the right agents.

Make your agents super agents

Most organizations have a lot of information locked away in unstructured content, documents, manuals and knowledge articles. AI can go through this large volume of data, find the right information, serve it up to the agent and even generate text that recommends how to handle the problem—all while the agent is interacting with the customer. With the help of AI, companies can reduce the time it takes agents to handle inquiries and leave customers feeling better understood and respected.

Discover new ways to improve your customer service process in a complimentary Automation Innovation Workshop.

Significant and immediate ROI

AI and automation can fundamentally transform the customer service experience by enhancing self-service, improving the routing to human agents, and augmenting the problem-solving or selling skills of human agents.

Companies that implement AI and automation to modernize customer service can see significant ROI as measured in total cost savings, customer satisfaction and loyalty.

An example is Camping World, a leading retailer of recreational vehicles (RVs) globally. By connecting its customers with a virtual agent named Arvee and enabling live agents to take over more complex conversations, Camping World increased customer engagement by 40% on all platforms and boosted agent efficiency by 33%.³

That amounted to nearly 8,000 conversations that were answered with Arvee and through the integration of the enhanced and improved intents. “When it gets to the agents, it allows the opportunity for more revenue-generating conversations and upselling opportunities,” says Brenda Wintrow, Senior Vice President of Sales and Customer Experience at Camping World.