Are AI Chatbots the Future of Customer Support?

Artificial intelligence (AI) offers plenty of advantages in the world of customer support, providing businesses with new, improved and more efficient ways of interacting with customers.

AI chatbots are one such example of how smart technology can help employees save time while also providing a service that may be difficult for humans to achieve, in terms of consistency and more.

Naturally, people have plenty of questions about AI and its future in the world, some of which are mere enquiries while others are genuine concerns.

How advanced will AI technology become, and does it have the potential to replace humans completely?

One of the first implementations of AI that really got people talking was in customer support. For some, having a smart conversation with anything other than a human was a completely novel, and potentially shocking, experience, and AI chatbots have only gotten smarter and more effective since they were first brought out.

The question is, if the technology is just getting smarter and becoming more advanced, where will it end? Rather, will it end? 

So, are AI chatbots the future of customer support?

 

Pros and Cons of AI Chatbots in Customer Support

 

There’s no straightforward answer to whether or not customer support will be completely dominated by AI chatbots in the future. Of course, anything’s possible and nobody really knows what’s going to happen, but the conversation requires a bit of nuance – that is, an overview of the pros and cons of the way in which AI chatbots are currently being used in customer support services.

 

Advantages of Using AI Chatbots for Customer Support

 

AI chatbots are excellent at saving businesses money in the long term, allowing employees to spend their time doing other things. They also allow for large numbers of customers to be dealt with simultaneously, taking into account important data and AI-driven insights, creating a more consistent, personalised customer experience.

Here are some of the ways in which the use of AI chatbots can be advantageous for businesses’ customer support.

 

• 24/7 Availability: Since you don’t have to worry about employees working reasonable hours, AI chatbots are able to function all day, every day, which is great for ensuring that customers are always dealt with, making them happier and eliminating frustrations regarding having to wait.

 

• Instant Responses: On top of 24-hour availability, chatbots are also able to respond instantly – that is, normally, within a few seconds. Bots don’t need time to think, find information and craft a well-written response, they can just pump them out immediately.

 

• Generative AI Scripts: As AI technology progresses, so too does the potential for generative AI, and generative AI offers an excellent way for AI to deal with customers in new and improved ways. It allows chatbots to learn from data and previous conversations, producing new scripts and having novel conversations with users.

 

• Personalisation: AI can take into account the personal details of customers and users in order to provide personalised responses to queries. The ability to move away from general answers and show users that their specific contexts and needs and understood tends to make for happier, more satisfied customers.

 

• Advanced Conversational Skills: As models improve, they tend to get better at holding conversations, and with generative AI in the mix, AI chatbots’ conversational skills are constantly getting better and giving customers experiences that are hard to differentiate from real human conversations.

 

• AI-Driven Insights: AI chatbots are able to provide customers with responses that take into account analyses and insights based on data and powered by artificial intelligence. That means that answers to customer questions can be smarter and more detailed.

 

• Scalability: Since chatbots could talk to an infinite number of people at a time (in theory), the scalability of customer service is just about boundless. That means that as the business continues to grow, it’ll always be able to keep up with customer service issues and the quality of customer service will always be consistent.

 

• Consistency: Consistency is key, and one thing that AI chatbots have over humans is the ability to be consistent, ensuring that all customers will receive the same treatment.

 

• Multilingual Support: Depending on AI chatbot and its capabilities, there is potential to be able to provide customer service in a variety of different languages. Although it needs to be trained and given the information and data to be able to do so, this is still far easier to achieve than actually finding and hiring customer service staff that are multilingual.

 

• Automatic Data Collection: The use of artificial intelligence allows for data to be collected constantly and automatically. This allows for more data to be collected and for the process to be done more accurately.

 

• Cost Savings: By using AI chatbots instead of human customer service reps, companies can save money over time. Systems will need to be implemented initially which requires some capital, but in the long term, there tends to be a great return on investment (ROI) in that AI can perform tasks that employees used to be paid salaries to do.

 

• Reduced Human Error: With humans working in customer service, there’s always potential for error, no matter how good people are at their jobs. AI chatbots don’t make mistakes in the same way that people do – they can’t – so by using AI chatbots, businesses will be able to eliminate human error almost completely.

 

 

There’s no arguing the fact that AI chatbots offer a great deal of advantages to businesses, many of which can help save money and improve operational efficiency and efficacy more than ever before.

However, that’s only one side of the story.

 

Disadvantages of Using AI Chatbots for Customer Support

 

Just like with anything else, the use of AI chatbots comes with its downsides too.

 

• Limited Understanding of Complex Enquiries: Since the chatbots aren’t human and they don’t actually have the ability to truly understand anything at all, there are limitations on their ability to deal with complex enquiries.

 

• Potential for Miscommunication: Since AI chatbots don’t actually have the ability to understand, it introduces potential for miscommunication which can result in unhappy customers.

 

• Lack of Human Touch and Empathy: Artificial intelligence also doesn’t have the ability to use real empathy, only what it’s learnt. That means that sometimes, chatbots can miss the mark a bit and not be particularly sensitive.

 

• Expensive Set-Up and Implementation Costs: Using AI chatbots can save companies money over time, but it can be very expensive to implement these systems initially, so for some businesses, it’s not feasible.

 

• Dependence on Existing Data: Artificial intelligence can only be as smart as the data it’s provided with. Chatbots of dependent on existing data so they can be limited and not take into account additional information.

 

• Privacy Concerns: There are always worries about privacy and security when you introduce any kind of automation and artificial intelligence especially, as there’s a risk of data and private information being leaked. It’s not necessarily likely to happen, but it certainly is something to be aware of.

 

• Lack of Creativity: AI chatbots aren’t human, so they don’t have the ability to be properly creative which can impose limitations on their ability and capacity to deal with customers.

 

• Language and Cultural Limitations: Some AI chatbots are trained in different languages and have access to datearegarding cultural norms and so on, but these models are limited to the data they’re provided with. This can mean that they may not be able to appropriately and properly deal with some issues and questions that may arise, whether it’s a foreign language or something to do with a specific culture.

 

None of these issues are complete deal breakers (at least for most people), but they’re certainly important enough to be taken into consideration when looking at the future of AI chatbots ad customer service more generally.

 

A Hybrid Model of Customer Service

 

With long lists of both advantages and disadvantages of using AI chatbots, how do you know which way to go? Do the advantages outweigh the disadvantages? Or, are there more cons than there are pros?

Ultimately, it’s all about balance, and the same can be said for most things to do with AI.

Artificial intelligence has plenty to offer businesses (and the world more generally), and the best way to mitigate the risks while enjoying the advantages is to find the happy medium. It’s all about being aware of the disadvantages and finding ways that humans can get involved and make improvements.

Indeed, the best way to deal with these things is to make use of AI chatbots, try and provide them with as much data as possible and then have customer service staff overseeing everything to pick up issues and mistakes.

Thus, it’s impossible to know for sure what the future will look like, but it seems like the best way to deal with these things is to create a hybrid model whereby humans can work in conjunction with AI chatbots.