The Benefits of AI Virtual Assistants: Elevating Customer Support With Advanced Solutions

The ultimate goal of chatbots and AI assistant implementation in customer support

The ultimate goal of chatbots and AI virtual assistants for customer service implementation in customer support is to address specific use cases effectively. Both basic chatbots and AI assistants were developed with two goals in mind: automation and accelerating processes. By automating and speeding up, companies get significant advantages, such as:

• Scalability. As the number of queries grows, a company can handle them on the available technical base without a proportional increase in resources.
• Cost-efficiency. You don’t need to hire a team of customer support agents. "Hire" chatbots or AI assistants which are faster, cheaper, and have more predictable outcomes.
• Operational efficiency. Chatbots and digital assistants are 24/7 available, always motivated, and functional.

With a digital assistant, one can improve a variety of KPIs, such as First Response Time (FRT), First Contact Resolution (FCR), Average Resolution Time (ART), Total Resolution Time (TRT), Resolution Rate (RR), and Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT).

Both types of tools are effective in terms of availability and functionality.

Both allow for the transfer of routine tasks onto the shoulders of a digital assistant. However, basic chatbots’ capabilities aren’t sufficient today since the requirements for the customer experience (CX) are significantly higher. Customers expect not only quick but personalized responses to complex queries.

The benefits of AI-powered virtual assistants for customer service are particularly evident in handling complex tasks. Based on a survey by Salesforce, 83% of consumers anticipate instant interaction with an agent upon making contact. Meanwhile, a Zendesk survey reveals that 70% of consumers expect representatives from any company they communicate with to possess a thorough knowledge of their purchase history, previous interactions, and relevant details.

In such complex tasks, the palm of primacy belongs to AI. Imagine that your digital agent provides the response within 1.5 seconds, and this response isn’t the link to the article in the knowledge base or a standard formulation. It’s two drafts of comprehensive answers in which customers’ buying history and the content of the whole conversation thread are taken into account.

This is how CoSupport Agent, an AI-powered assistant for customer support, works. This is one of the examples among the solutions that help elevate the quality of service in the support department to a new level to get the most out of the benefits of an AI virtual assistant for customer service.

The tricky part is that the best way to understand the advantages of AI-powered tools is by becoming more familiar with chatbots and then comparing the two.

Basic chatbots vs AI assistants: a comparison

Pre-programmed chatbots and smart AI assistants are tools that are easily distinguishable when you face them in action.

Communicating with chatbots leaves the same feeling as wearing synthetic clothes. It's acceptable and practical, but the sensation of artificiality remains.

In contrast, communicating with an assistant leaves a more pleasant, more natural aftertaste.

While sensations are good at making an impression, they’re an unstable foundation for understanding. Thus, let's delve into the essence of both technologies in technical detail.

Key differences between chatbots and AI assistants

Basic chatbots

"Basic," "conversational," "rule-based" — these are the terms aligned with chatbots associated with algorithms and predefined rules. Technology goes back to human attempts to create a digital assistant that could speak in human language. One of the first such attempts was ELIZA, the program that mimicked natural conversation, created in 1966.

From today's perspective, chatbots may seem simple and naive; though, they are good in their field of expertise. "Classic" chatbots are easy to build and maintain. Their output is predictable. The cost is significantly lower compared to that of AI-powered tools.

Moreover, from this time on, rule-based chatbots became much more sophisticated. State-of-the-art conversational chatbots even mimic human speech, much more successfully than ELIZA, due to natural language processing (NLP) and natural language understanding (NLU) technologies.

On the other hand, basic chatbots have limitations in their functionality compared to AI-powered solutions, dictated by the rule-based logic that underlies them:

• The inability to grasp the context. When you discuss with a chatbot your last purchase (let it be a blue jumper), it catches the topic of this very conversation. As soon as the new conversation starts, a client is a newcomer to a chatbot, and the client’s purchase history and preferences are a blank slate for a chatbot.
• The inability to catch twists in speech. How well a tool understands a query depends heavily on the query formulation. For example, if a customer writes, "My computer died," chances are that a chatbot won’t catch the meaning if its dictionary doesn’t have "to die" as a synonym for "to break down."
• Dependence on algorithms. A chatbot's competence is confined to the boundaries of algorithms prescribed by humans. If the developer does not anticipate a certain situation, the chatbot will become confused and will not be able to assist the customer. Here is the response&request example:

The example of a conversation with a chatbot

These limitations highlight the benefits of AI virtual assistants for customer service. Unlike basic chatbots, AI-powered assistants excel at handling more complex queries and understanding customer context, offering a superior virtual assistant for customer service experience.

A virtual assistant for customer service

AI-powered customer support assistants are based on two advanced technologies — NLP and machine learning (ML). Advanced AI solutions emerge in the field where these two powerful technologies overlap. Their collaboration results in two crucial characteristics that set AI assistants apart from basic chatbots: the ability to naturally understand human speech and the capacity to learn.

These abilities, in turn, make the key AI assistant features possible.

An understanding of speech that closely mirrors that of a human's

Natural, conversational speech is more diverse than the rules that describe it. People sometimes use words inappropriately because habit dictates them, or such is their manner of communication. Unlike a chatbot, an AI assistant will understand the client even if their expression is not very literate or sufficiently structured. An AI assistant will also grasp figurative language and even detect sarcasm.

In addition, an AI-powered customer support assistant will catch the meaning if the idea is expressed in not-so-conventional terms (here, we can recall the example of a ‘dead’ laptop).

An understanding of customers’ feelings and moods

It’s a more complex task than identifying keywords for customers’ intentions analysis (in other words, the understanding of why a customer needs assistance).

An AI-powered assistant knows if the particular customer’s impressions about the interaction and the brand in general are good, bad, or neutral.

An example is Zendesk's sentiment analysis feature, which allows ticket prioritization and routing. Tickets filled with negative sentiments are labelled as alerts, processed first, given much attention, and directed to experts who can resolve the queries in the most efficient manner. Once analyzed and generalized, the information about ticket sentiments provides valuable insights for improvements.

The benefits of using a virtual assistant are clear when considering its ability to understand nuanced communication and emotional cues. A virtual assistant for customer service not only deciphers complex language but also gauges customer emotions, enabling a more tailored and empathetic response.

An ability to grasp the context

It’s vital from two perspectives. Firstly, an AI-powered customer support assistant remembers the content of the whole conversation. In other words, an AI assistant is an attentive listener as it grasps each and every detail of the dialogue. As a result, a customer doesn’t need to repeat the same information at different stages of the conversation.

Secondly, an AI-powered assistant, being properly trained, has a comprehensive vision of a particular customer’s concerns: purchases, preferences, and problematic issues. Here is an example of an artificially generated example of conversation to explain how an assistant grasps the conversation context:

The example of a conversation in which an AI assistant grasps context

Understanding context is a key to personalization and an AI assistant's excellence in providing the responses that are unique to each client and tailored to their personal context, including purchase history, the issues they encountered, personal preferences, and even specific communication styles.

Overall, the benefits of an AI virtual assistant for customer service are manifold. Such assistants can significantly improve customer satisfaction by providing quick, personalized responses, understanding customer emotions, and maintaining a consistent context throughout interactions. These capabilities set them apart from traditional chatbots and make them an invaluable asset to modern customer service.

Overall, a virtual assistant for customer service offers businesses a way to enhance their customer interactions, streamline operations, and stay competitive in a rapidly evolving market.

An ability to learn

The ability to deepen knowledge is the solid foundation for AI copilots. Due to ML algorithms, models see patterns in the data and gain the ability to create new content. This is how ChatGPT creates texts and pieces of programming code, and DALLE-3 creates images.

Large language models (LLMs), such as GPT-4, Claude, or Gemini, are trained on a vast amount of general data. Speaking figuratively, LLMs know a lot about the surrounding world. For example, they can explain why the sky is blue. After training, LLMs can be fine-tuned to gain certain field knowledge.

Smaller, custom models like those developed by CoSupport AI undergo the same development stages as Large Language Models (LLMs), yet they differ in their specialized knowledge bases:

• They are pre-trained to become able to communicate effectively without diving deeply into the general topics (they can’t explain why the sky is blue).
• They are fine-tuned on the data about the companies’ products and services, using the knowledge base and technical documentation as a source of information.

Custom models turn out to be more focused on certain domains. Two bonuses of this approach to model training are cost efficiency and a reduced risk of hallucinations — outputs in which a model produces data that is off the mark.

Regardless of the size and complexity, each AI model operates with data in a smart way: analyzing, comparing, and summarizing.

In some solutions, such as CoSupport Agent, the AI-powered assistant developed by CoSupport AI, a system of "rewards" and "punishments" is used.

This approach is called reinforcement learning and it’s based on feedback that models get according to the quality of their answers. Reinforcement learning fosters models to provide more accurate answers with each iteration. In this way, models expand and deepen their expertise.

Reinforcement learning scheme

Thus, the biggest magic related to AI is that tools based on artificial intelligence work beyond pre-defined rules and algorithms. With a solid foundation and relevant supervision, you can entrust certain tasks to an AI assistant and expect that it will meet the requirements. Virtual assistants benefit greatly from these advancements, offering enhanced support and personalization.

Do you need a virtual assistant for customer service? The checklist

This checklist, we hope, will help you weigh the decision if you tend to move towards implementation of AI in your customer support. Tick the options that correspond to your case:

The checklist to assess if your business needs an AI assistant

If you agree with at least seven items, it’s time to consider AI implementation in your customer service.

Our checklist does not claim to be a precise tool, of course. Rather, it serves as food for thought and is intended to prompt the search for deeper insights. A more thorough analysis is necessary because implementing AI is a resource-intensive and complex process.

Conclusion

As you embark on the journey of integrating an AI-powered solution into your customer support, it's crucial to recognize that this decision marks just the beginning. Implementing AI is akin to acquiring a high-tech, expensive vehicle: it has the potential to propel you forward, offering significant advantages in speed and performance. However, this advancement also necessitates ongoing maintenance, a dedicated technical team to address its complexities, and the "fuel" to keep it running smoothly.

The benefits of AI-powered virtual assistants for customer service include enhanced efficiency, improved customer satisfaction, and potential for innovation, often outweighing the initial and operational costs. Moreover, the market offers a variety of solutions designed to balance service quality with cost efficiency, ensuring that businesses can find a fitting AI strategy that aligns with their goals and resources.

In essence, the journey toward AI-enhanced customer support is one of strategic investment and continuous adaptation. With the right approach, the payoff in customer loyalty and operational excellence can set your business apart, heralding a new era of customer service that's both intelligent and impactful.