Adding Intelligence to Customer Support
No matter how intuitive, foolproof, and reliable your products are, somebody, somewhere, is going to need help with them. Some companies see customer support as a necessary evil and a cost to be minimized. Ohers, such as HP, understand that every customer support contact is an opportunity to build and maintain brand loyalty.
HP should know. With tens of thousands of products, ranging from consumer-market inkjet printers to high-performance servers, HP receives over 600 million support contacts every year. To improve the customer experience, HP deployed an artificial intelligence (AI) agent, powered by the Microsoft Dynamics 365 AI solution for customer service.
Benefits of AI for Customer Support
With HP’s AI customer support agent implementation, both customers and human support personnel benefit:
- Customers receive a better self-support experience because the AI agent can ask a few questions and pinpoint likely solutions from HPs vast database of support documentation. Many support cases can be resolved without involving human support staff.
- For those cases that the AI agent can’t resolve on its own, the system executes a seamless handoff to a human agent, who is supplied with all of the context of the case: Customer’s name and location, equipment model and serial number, and a transcript of the AI agent’s interaction. The customer doesn’t have to start over from step 1.
- The human agent also has access to AI-powered search tools to help identify possible solutions to the customer’s issue.
Furthermore, the system learns from each interaction, thereby improving its performance over time. The result is happier customers and more efficient human customer service agents.
Good AI Depends on Good Data
Like any system, an AI solution depends on good data, and a customer-centered AI solution in particular relies on good CRM data. Before embarking on a project to implement a customer-facing AI system, you need to ask a few questions about your data, such as:
- Can you instantly identify current customers, previous customers, and cross-sell opportunities?
- Are you tracking the customer details that drive business development?
- Are you able to personalize your messaging to a level that drives connection?
If your CRM data doesn’t support your business, there are some actions you can take, such as:
- Review your data fields to validate that they are understood by the internal user community, are used properly, and drive value.
- Review your CRM data with a critical eye to identify opportunities to collect additional information about prospects and customers to drive personalization that connects.
For more tips on getting the most from your CRM system and the data it relies on, download the Empellor CRM “Self-Assessing Your CRM & Process Strategy Checklist.” This checklist can guide you towards the next steps in building a robust customer data environment that can be the foundation of a robust customer support AI solution.
