E-commerce leaders may have once been wary of implementing artificial intelligence (AI) tools, fearing impacts on job security and morale. However, today customer experience (CX) experts are eagerly embracing AI. A recent HubSpot survey reveals that four in five CX specialists consider automation solutions essential to their strategy, and three in five say AI helps them understand their customers better.
Customer service teams aren’t just adopting AI in CX because it promises better results, but because it makes their lives easier and their work more efficient. What are the benefits of AI from the perspective of CX professionals? And what are the common uses and applications of AI in their world?
#1 24/7 availability
An overwhelming majority (90%) of customers consider an immediate response to be important or very important when they have a customer service issue, with “immediate” defined as 10 minutes or fewer. It may come as no surprise then that 36% of customer service professionals view 24/7 availability as one of the biggest benefits of AI in customer service.
Leveraging natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning, AI is redefining e-commerce customer interactions, providing instant support when human agents are unavailable. AI tools can:
- Respond in real-time across time zones
- Support multiple languages to cater to a global customer base
- Cover for human staff during off-peak hours
- Assist human agents amid surges in demand
Real-world impact
Consider Clove, a footwear apparel company that partnered with Yuma AI to reduce its first response time during peak hours. Clove successfully addressed this pivotal issue, enhancing customer satisfaction while reaching 70% automation and achieving a threefold return on investment (ROI).
#2 Time savings
According to HubSpot, 31% of customer service professionals rate time savings as a leading advantage of AI. AI is changing the way CX teams operate, allowing them to automate order status questions and FAQs and other repetitive work:
- Manage order status questions
- Respond to FAQs
- Troubleshoot
- Manage account updates
- Field billing, shipping, and return requests
This, in turn, streamlines efficiency and enhances productivity. These AI systems can understand and respond to mundane queries quickly and accurately, freeing human agents to tackle more pressing and complex matters.
Real-world impact
Take Omnie, a customer service outsourcing company that joined forces with Yuma AI to revamp its CX. In addition to achieving 50% full automation rates for its top clients, they were able to cut response time from 7 hours to 1 hour, freeing up their clients’ teams.
#3 Faster responses
In the high-demand environment of e-commerce, CX teams often face a significant workload. Facing a nonstop influx of queries, human agents can become overwhelmed, leading to slower response times and difficulty keeping up with customer needs.
According to HubSpot, 30% of customer service specialists believe faster response times and less time spent on requests are essential perks of AI. As we alluded to earlier, timely responses are crucial, making it all the more important that AI can quickly:
- Resolve routine FAQs and provide immediate answers using pre-programmed instructions
- Categorize customer queries and filter them to the appropriate destination
- Apply machine learning to predict behaviors and suggest appropriate outputs based on past interactions
Real-world impact
These rapid responses lead to happier customers. Yuma AI teamed up with MyVariations to automate 62% of its customer support tickets and respond to customer queries immediately. As a result, the company cut its response time by 70% and kept customer satisfaction high.
#4 Ability to address complex queries
By fully automating repetitive queries, many e-commerce platforms have been able to free up their human agents to focus on more nuanced issues. This is welcome news for customer service professionals, 28% of whom rank time available for complex queries as a key utility of AI in CX.
CX professionals see the value in having more time to address challenging issues that require human empathy, contextual understanding, and critical thinking. AI solutions free them up by:
- Autonomously handling orders and payments
- Promptly addressing pre-sale questions
- Automatically cleaning support inboxes
Real-world impact
Medical equipment company MFI Medical partnered with Yuma AI to automate 64% of its customer support tickets and cut first response times by 87%. In the process, they saved significant team time every month, a level of efficiency that allowed the team to reallocate resources to higher-value tasks.
#5 Addressing queries more effectively
Although AI isn’t perfect (it can sometimes hallucinate) it’s come a long way, particularly among top models such as GPT-4 Turbo, which is 97.5% accurate. As a result, 25% of CX professionals cite assistance answering queries as a vital benefit of AI.
Beyond informing CX agents, AI can:
- Analyze customer queries to identify frequent topics
- Learn from past interactions to continually improve response quality
- Integrate with knowledge bases to deliver precise information
Real-world impact
Recently we delved into accuracy in AI, noting that generative AI has become highly accurate, albeit imperfect. It’s important to partner with a vendor like Yuma AI that has guardrails in place to help ensure incorrect responses are avoided.
The Yuma AI difference
AI is no longer a futuristic concept; it’s a vital tool embraced by e-commerce leaders and customer service representatives alike. AI automates tasks, reduces response times, and allows human agents to focus their attention on high-value things.
From subscription management and product troubleshooting to tagging and automated reply filtering, Yuma AI offers an end-to-end suite of AI solutions that help e-commerce businesses increase their efficiency and scale their operations. Companies like Clove and MFI Medical have achieved impressive true automation rates and empowered their staff to make the greatest impact possible. When evaluating AI customer service software, look for guardrails, deep ecommerce integrations, and proven automation rates.
Ready to transform your customer support with the power of AI? Discover how Yuma AI can elevate your operational efficiency and customer satisfaction. Contact us today to take your CX to the next level.
