Customer service is an essential activity in almost every business. For small businesses, it is easy to manage customer support with manual efforts. As the customer base increases, the number of support tickets also increases significantly. So, how to offer all customers fast, customized, and accurate support? This is where AI customer service software comes into action.
AI customer service is a new concept but is gaining widespread popularity due to its exceptional ability to automate and streamline customer service. If you are also interested in integrating AI customer support solutions into your organization, then you are reading the right guide. Here, we are covering the basic overview of AI customer service and then listing the 7 best tools to consider for 2024.
- What is AI Customer Service?
- What is an AI Customer Service Software?
- Benefits of using AI in Customer Service
- 7 Best AI Customer Service Software in 2024
- Wrapping Up
What is AI Customer Service?
AI customer service implies the use of artificial intelligence in assisting and automating customer service matters. It can comprise many tools or technologies, such as:
- Chatbots: An AI system programmed to reply to customer queries based on pre-trained data and simulate human-like conversation using natural language processing. Today, 80% of marketers have chatbots as part of their customer experience strategy.
- Virtual Assistants: An AI assistant that can understand complex queries, interact with backend systems, and provide personalized responses.
- Automated Ticketing System: An AI system that can receive, categorize, prioritize, and route customer support tickets based on their topic and urgency level.
- Voice Recognition Systems: An AI voice recognition system that can listen, understand, and transcribe customer voice inputs. It is similar to the ones we see on our smartphones.
- Predictive Analytics: An AI system/algorithm that can analyze vast customer data to predict future problems and suggest proactive measures.
In short, AI in customer service is all about leveraging AI in customer service-related activities.
What is an AI Customer Service Software?
AI customer service software is software that utilizes artificial intelligence to automate, streamline, or uplift customer service interactions.
Basically, it is an AI tool programmed to reply to customer queries based on pre-trained data and simulate human-like conversation using natural language processing. It can greet customers, guide them about common processes, route their complex complaints to human agents, and do more.
Benefits of using AI in Customer Service
AI in customer service is no longer considered a choice but a necessity. There are many benefits of using AI in customer service. Some of the top ones are as follows:
1. 24/7 Availability
An AI customer service tool is available to provide 24/7 customer support without any delays. Unlike humans who can offer limited hours availability, AI customer support is available every time, no matter the time zone.
2. Cost-Effectiveness
Customer service with AI helps organizations save significant costs. It can automatically handle many customer queries, which reduces the need for manpower. For example, it can accurately respond to queries related to order status instead of requiring dedicated humans to respond to such queries.
3. Responsive and Personalized Responses
AI customer service offers instant and personalized responses to customers. Instead of waiting for hours for the human agent to reply, the AI chatbot can instantly give the required response. Moreover, it is trained to provide personalized responses based on the specific needs and preferences of each customer.
4. Multichannel Support
AI customer service software can integrate with various communication channels. This can include websites, social media platforms, mobile apps, etc. This way, a single AI chatbot can facilitate customer service across multiple channels.
5. Scalability
Another main benefit of customer service AI is its ability to handle any number of queries simultaneously. When the business grows and the queries count increases, the AI customer support software can handle them all proficiently.
6. Continuous Improvement
AI customer service tools powered by machine learning are continuously learning from the interactions they have with the customers. This helps them get better responses and become more efficient with the passage of time.
7 Best AI Customer Service Software in 2024
Now that we have cleared the basics and usefulness of AI customer service software, let's now discuss the 7 best software solutions you can consider for your business:
1. VOC AI Chatbot – Best AI Customer Service Chatbot
The first and one of the best AI customer service chatbots is VOC AI Agent for Customer Service. As the name implies, it is an AI chatbot powered through GPT technology that can respond to simple to complex customer queries promptly. It can be trained on your provided data and then intelligently respond to queries. Its powerful capabilities make it able to automate 70% of customer queries.
The key features of VOC AI Chatbot include:
- Chatbot trained on your company's dataset
- Abrupt response to customer queries within 5 seconds
- Carry out human-like conversations
- Satisfactory and to-the-point responses
- Integrates with other platforms, including WhatsApp, Facebook, Shopify, Intercom, etc.
- Direct chats to human support automatically on customer request
- Provide comprehensive data analytics on chatbot responses and customer reviews to improve efficiency
Pricing
- Pro: $39/month (1,000 message credits/month)
- Team: $199/month (10,000 message credits/month)
- Enterprise: Custom plan (100,000+ messages credits/month)
2. Churn360
Churn360 is an AI-driven customer success platform meant to facilitate B2B SaaS companies. It intends to retain and expand customers by turning data into actionable insights to lower churn.
Churn360 provides a 360-degree view of customers by integrating all third-party software and providing a central dashboard to view customers. It comes with an AI bot called Eddy that is designed to go through data and provide actionable insights to lower churn.
The key features of Churn360 include:
- Track customer journey from onboarding and adoption to renewal and advocacy.
- Alert you about customers likely to leave to ensure timely intervention
- Assign health scores to customers using various parameters, which makes it easy to pinpoint the likelihood of the customer churning.
- Effective management of customers by categorizing them based on purchase history, demographics, etc.
Pricing
- Startup: $399/month
- Professional: $799/month
- Enterprise: Custom plan
3. Intercom Fin
Fin is an AI-powered bot of Intercom that provides customer support with OpenAI's advanced language model. It is designed to automatically respond to customers' queries with authentic replies. This helps lower support volume, provide 24/7 support, and much more.
The key features of Intercom Fin are as follows:
- Instant answer to customer queries from multiple sources
- Customized answers to every customer
- Provide responses on various platforms, such as WhatsApp, SMS, Intercom Messenger, etc.
- Can connect to human agents when required
- Workflows for improved automation
Pricing
- Essential: $39/month/seat
- Advanced: $99/month/seat
- Expert: $139/month/seat
4. Hiver
Hiver is a Gmail-based customer service platform. It facilitates customer service teams to handle customer interactions over the phone, email, live chat, and WhatsApp. Its AI Bot called Harvey improves the efficiency of the support team. Using NLP, Harvey serves as a virtual assistant for the support team, as it can summarize emails, auto-close conversations, and more. For instance, it can automatically close non-actionable emails, like a thank you email, to save support team time.
The key features of Harvey include:
- Intuitive Gmail-based help desk capabilities
- Intelligent recognition of the customer interaction context
- Smartly detect non-actionable messages
- Keep track of all actions for accountability and transparency
Pricing
- Lite: $15/month/user
- Pro: $49/month/user
- Elite: $79/month/user
5. Freshdesk
Freshdesk is an AI customer service software that provides a wide set of functionalities to optimize the customer support process. Freddy is its support bot that can help answer customer queries on chat and email promptly. It continuously learns from previous tickets/resolutions and suggests fresh responses to customers' queries for a quick resolution.
The key features of Freddy are as follows:
- Create conversational flows with the no-code builder
- Deploy across multiple messaging platforms, including WhatsApp, LINE, Facebook, etc.
- Execute tasks within chat, like booking appointments, checking order statuses, etc.
- Direct support tickets to relevant teams smartly.
Pricing
- Growth: $18/month/agent
- Pro: $59/month/agent
- Enterprise: $95/month/agent
6. KIQ Customer Assist
KIQ Customer Assist is a customer service AI tool by Kustomer that provides automated responses to customers' queries based on pre-trained data. It uses advanced AI language models to provide accurate and safe answers to customers promptly. Moreover, it also provides comprehensive monitoring and reporting to have a proper look at resolution rates, customer satisfaction metrics, etc.
The key features of KIQ Customer Assist are as follows:
- Code-free configuration
- CRM-powered resolutions for enhanced customer experience
- Craft dynamic conversation workflows for personalized solutions according to customer inputs
- Instant answers 24/7
Pricing
- Enterprise: $89/month/user
- Ultimate: $139/month/user
Note: KIQ Customer Assist is available at a price of $0.75 per resolution and $39 per user.
Read more: 11 Best AI Chatbots Fueling the Industry in 2024
7. Tidio Lyro
Tidio Lyro is an AI chatbot that expedites customer query resolution time and also saves 70% of the team's time. It can answer common questions automatically and carry out recurring tasks to save time significantly. It keeps conversations with customers in human style to increase their satisfaction.
The key features of Tidio Lyro include:
- Easy to configure setup
- Responds according to your data
- Answer most frequently asked customer queries automatically
- Take over conversations whenever you want
- Provide analytics to understand customer experience
Pricing
- Lyro AI: $39/month (50 conversations)
Wrapping Up
AI customer service is a valuable investment for businesses that have to tackle dozens of customer queries every day. By automating responses to common queries and offering 24/7 instant replies, you can have an enhanced customer experience and save significant time for the support team. So, go through the above best AI customer support tools and choose the one that best aligns with your needs.
However, we recommend you try VOC AI Agent for Customer Support, as it incorporates all the AI-powered and advanced customer support features in an intuitive interface. To wrap up, it's time to pick the AI customer service software and provide customers with a modernized customer support experience.
