Human Customer Service: How to Harness AI to Enhance Customer Relationships

Every business aims to provide excellent customer service to its customers. However, customers have never-ending demands, and their perceptions change daily. It is hard to satisfy them according to their needs.

This is where the powerful combination of human customer service and Artificial Intelligence (AI) steps in. 

It is possible for businesses to strengthen customer relationships, provide 24/7 service, resolve issues efficiently, and ultimately turn frustrated customers into loyal brand advocates by blending human customer service with advanced technology like AI.

In this blog, we will discuss the importance of human customer service and how businesses can implement AI to provide human-centric customer service.

So, let’s get started.

What is Human Customer Service?

Human customer service is serving customers by real people hired by businesses. It also means encouraging humans (agents) to serve customers with better facilities. Human customer services focuses on providing customer-oriented support. In this service, agents are responsible for solving issues, answering questions, and supporting customers. 

Nowadays, with the recent advancement of AI, many businesses have started using AI in human customer service to enhance the delivery of personal service. According to the Zendesk Customer Experience Trends Report, 67% of CX leaders believe bots can help build stronger emotional connections with customers. 

Here’s an example: AI-powered insights can help customer service agents grasp what a customer is thinking and feeling. This way, they can quickly and efficiently address any problems the customer might have.

Why is Human Customer Service Essential?

Human Customer Service is essential due to the following benefits:

• Reliability: Humans are more reliable than technology. Live human agents can empathize with customers and understand their emotions, needs, and desires at a deeper level. Technology, on the other hand, can’t connect emotionally with customers, and also it isn’t 100% reliable; some technical issues and downtime may exist over time.
  
• Adaptability: Humans can adapt to new and sensitive situations and find solutions from past experiences and cultural understanding. Human customer service can also resolve complex matters.
  
• Build trust among customers: Humans can build genuine customer relationships by developing trust. Humans can feel customers’ emotions and understand their problems quickly, whereas AI can only perform some similar tasks.
  
• Qualitative feedback: Direct conversations between customer service agents and customers can draw qualitative feedback from customers that might not be easy for AI to catch. Qualitative data can be used to solve problems before coming to customers, which retains customers.
  

Automating and Leveraging AI for a Better Human Customer Experience: 5 Simple Ways

Having a better relationship with customers is always a priority for any business. A business that knows its customers well will always be on the top list. However, many companies find keeping up with customers’ pace challenging. 

With the advancement of AI, businesses can improve customer service by delivering support quickly and efficiently. So, here are five ways you can use AI to improve the human customer experience.

1. Empower 24/7 Self-service via Chatbot/ Virtual Assistant

AI chatbots and virtual assistants have become typical customer support solutions for many businesses. Customers prefer quick responses, so an AI chatbot and virtual assistant can be the best choice. 

The AI chatbots and virtual assistants offer self-service options to customers and enable them to get answers to their questions without talking to live agents. This promotes 24/7 customer service. 

With these tech-savvy assistants taking care of everyday customers’ questions, human agents can focus on other complex issues and help customers who need agent-on-duty assistance. It’s a total win-win that will surely put a smile on our customers’ faces.

2. Quickly Resolve Customer Issues (Speeding Up Response Time) 

AI helps a business quickly resolve a customer’s issue by answering frequently asked questions, troubleshooting problems, and guiding customers through basic processes without human intervention. 

This capability helps customer service providers to focus more on other complex issues that require a human touch. Additionally, AI ensures consistent, accurate responses across all channels, strengthening customer satisfaction.

3. Identify Customer’s Needs and Issues

To provide a better service, it is essential to identify what customers actually need and their issues. In such cases, AI uses Natural Language Processing (NLP) technology to understand human language. It helps analyze customer sentiment, identify customer needs, and provide relevant responses.  

This helps to reduce waiting times, improve overall customer satisfaction, and increase efficiency in resolving issues. Moreover, AI also allows businesses to make more informed decisions about how to improve their products and services.

4. Personalization for a Stronger Relationship

Nowadays, AI helps businesses identify individual customer data, such as what they bought before, what they looked at online, and their background information. With this information, businesses can tailor their interactions with customers, providing a more personalized and engaging customer service experience. For example, AI suggests products to customers based on their previous purchase history and interests.

This personalized approach makes customers more interested and likely to buy, leading to more sales and happier customers.

5. Predicting Upcoming Trends and Events

AI is like a super-smart detective for businesses. It can predict information from social media, what people buy, and how they interact with websites. 

In addition, its advanced features are capable of detecting trends and habits that humans may miss. This helps companies understand what customers like and want. Nowadays, businesses use AI to make their products and services suitable for their customers.

How to Add a Personal Human Touch to your Customer Service

You can add a personal human touch to your customer service in the following ways:

• Use live chat: Live chat is the fastest and most effective way to connect with customers. It is also the cheapest form of communication, more affordable than emails and phone calls. It provides a more human touch than chatbots and satisfies the customer.
  
• Establish a friendly bond: Friendly employees and better experiences are key factors in customer satisfaction and retention. So, use polite language when writing messages in emails, live chats, social media posts, etc.
  
• Use automation wisely: Proper use of automation brings various benefits to the business, such as optimization of efficiency, maximization of productivity, reduction of operation cost, etc.
  
• Show empathy and enthusiasm: Agents should treat customers politely, show kindness, and be willing to find solutions to their problems. This creates a positive message in the customer’s mind.
  
• Treat every customer as an individual: Treating customers as individuals means understanding who they are and what motivates them. Agents should take time and treat them as real people rather than numbers.
  
• Be proactive rather than reactive: Proactive means being ready before something happens. Being proactive can gain the customer’s trust and build loyalty by solving their queries and problems before they ask for them.

What Challenges Are Faced While Delivering Human Customer Service?

Agents have to face various challenges while delivering human customer services. Some of the common challenges faced by agents are :

1. Serving Multiple Customers at a Time

Sometimes, a single agent needs to handle multiple customers at a time. It occurs due to staffing issues,  daily peak hours, or seasonal. Handling several customers at once is challenging. It can cause problems like the possibility of a late response or of failing to resolve inquiries, which leads to a poor customer experience.

2. Not Knowing the Answer to the Question

It is a common challenge in a business. There may be a situation where agents don’t know the answer to customers’ questions. This situation frustrates both the agent and the customer, resulting in a negative customer experience.

3. Facing Frustrated Customer

Dealing with frustrated customers is a complex task and one of the most challenging aspects of customer service. You should calmly handle the situation by being an active listener, using positive language, and thanking them for raising such a problem to be solved.

4. Not Meeting Customer Expectations

Customers always have high expectations from customer service. There are some reasons for not meeting customer expectations, such as being unable to solve queries on time, not being able to provide the level of service they want, not being treated fairly, or not getting enough attention.

5. Insufficient Right Tools

 Using customer service tools increases the quality and efficiency of agents’ customer service. It saves time and provides quick responses to the customers. Hence, serving customers with insufficient tools can be challenging for agents while delivering human customer service.

6. Delay in Resolving Issues

Delay in resolving issues is one of the common challenges in customer service. Customers always want a solution to their problems in a short period of time. Taking a long time to resolve issues or queries may lead to negative customer experience.

7. Not Having a Solution to Customer’s Problem

Customers communicate with customer service teams or agents, expecting their problems to be solved. However, sometimes, agents cannot provide a solution, which can cause customers to lose trust in agents and customer service.

8. Unable to Provide Discount to Customer

There may be situations when customers ask for discounts that agents can’t give due to the company’s specific policies regarding discounts. This situation is challenging for agents; they want to make customers happy but can’t break a company’s policy.

Deliver Exceptional Human Customer Service With KrispCall

Human customer service with AI can explore extreme business opportunities. So, investing in AI for better human customer service is essential for businesses to deliver exceptional customer service, which helps build trust, loyalty, and long-term relationships and improve overall customer service.

If you are looking for call center software for your business to deliver exceptional human customer services, KrispCall is one of the best alternatives because it offers unlimited advanced features like call transfer, call forwarding, Unified Callbox, shared number, IVR, custom greetings, and many more. 

All these features help to deliver exceptional customer service by directing calls to the right agents, allowing self-service options, and creating a friendly virtual environment for customers.

So, what are you waiting for? 😃 Just go ahead and try Krispcall Today!

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What is the significant difference between Human customer service and AI customer service?

The significant difference between human customer service and AI customer service is that in human customer service, customers are served by real humans (agents), fostering emotional connection. Whereas, in AI customer service, customers are served using different AI tools, emphasizing efficiency and automation.

What does a Human touch in Customer service mean?

The human touch in Customer service means treating customers with respect, flexibility, kindness, and understanding.

What is Real Customer Service?

Real customer service is about creating an experience where customers feel valued and satisfied, whether they realize it or not.  When done well, real customer service can set your business apart from competitors and build long-lasting customer relationships.

Can AI replace Human customer service in the future?

Currently, No. AI can’t replace human service as it lacks human bonds and emotions while communicating. However, according to Renowned inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil, AIs are not quite as competitive as humans now, but by 2029, they will match any person.

What are the drawbacks of AI for customer services?

The drawbacks of AI for customer services are:

1. Lack of human touch
2. Limited ability to understand complex queries
3. Lack of empathy and emotion
4. Data and privacy concerns
5. Biases in AI
6. Expensive to implement

Arun Chaudhary

Arun is SEO Analyst at KrispCall. He has written in extensively in the field of cloud telephony and call center solutions.