Myth: AI is only good for self-service and automation.
Reality: AI helps support teams make more informed, data-driven decisions to enhance the customer experience and your bottom line.

There’s no doubt AI has improved self-service operations, ticket routing, knowledge bases, bots, and many other support functions. But AI’s use cases extend far beyond the automation of repetitive, transactional tasks.

AI can analyze customer sentiment or a customer’s feelings about a product or service. These insights, in turn, help support teams identify patterns, predict problems, and prioritize cases. AI does this more efficiently than your team members could do on their own, given the massive volume of cases they deal with each day.

With AI-powered customer service, a support manager doesn’t need to analyze a single customer interaction on their own. Thanks to AI advancements, the manager can see that communication in context with all the text-based data encompassed in a case—emails, case notes, and chat transcripts. Support teams and contact centers can use customer data-driven insights to better answer customer questions and make more informed decisions.

Myth: AI will replace human agents.

Reality: AI frees up human agents to focus on higher-value tasks and be more proactive with customers, which improves the customer experience.

AI-powered customer service doesn’t replace human agents—it empowers them. By reducing repetitive tasks, improving case review functionality, and streamlining backlog management, agents get out of the endless cycle of firefighting. They become available for more high-value tasks, like proactively checking in and messaging with customers, assisting with complex case resolution, and leveling up their own skills.

Agents have a big influence on a company’s bottom line as they’re responsible for increasing customer satisfaction, reducing churn, and building customer loyalty. Too often, though, agents are buried in repetitive tasks. AI-powered customer service helps you make the most of your agents—your support organization’s most valuable asset.

An AI customer service platform like SupportLogic SX can reduce case review time by up to 60%. It alerts support managers in real time to cases that need attention, so they can stay on top of high-value accounts and take corrective action.

Myth: AI is only for B2C.

Reality: Business-to-business (B2B) support organizations can benefit from AI just as much—and perhaps even more—than businesses that cater to end consumers (B2C).

B2C companies typically handle a large volume of cases with lower complexity, while B2B companies focus on a smaller number of cases with greater complexity. A single B2B case can involve hundreds of communications between a vendor and customer, particularly when it involves highly technical SaaS products. And those communications include many different contact points and stakeholders.

Plus, there’s a lot at stake in B2B, where a single customer contact can be worth upwards of hundreds of thousands of dollars a month.

AI-powered customer service software can analyze all of those B2B support interactions and surface important insights—instead of getting lost in the unstructured data of traditional CRMs. With AI-powered technology, you won’t get caught behind the eight-ball with an executive-initiated escalation by a high-value customer. You can anticipate customers’ needs and resolve issues proactively.

Myth: AI can only help support agents in the moment.

Reality: AI-powered customer support does much more than help agents solve a customer’s tricky tech problem during live, customer-facing situations. It also empowers agents to head off potential escalations and churn risks in the future.

Support managers and service agents can’t possibly read the notes from every customer interaction. By ingesting and analyzing case data, SupportLogic SX is able to send predictive alerts when customer sentiment is moving toward a future escalation. Support teams are alerted when there’s a problem, so they can address the issue before it becomes a full-on crisis.

AI-powered customer service technology doesn’t just flag potential escalations. It also helps managers identify the root factors that are driving the case toward escalation and take corrective actions. AI empowers better decision-making for support teams.

Myth: AI is expensive and complicated to deploy.

Reality: AI technology isn’t just for data scientists and researchers anymore. Purpose-built AI solutions are making AI more accessible, affordable, and scalable for businesses.

SupportLogic SX, for instance, is purpose-built for the realm of B2B customer support. The platform’s natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning (ML) technology are trained with over 60 million B2B support interactions. Our software seamlessly integrates with popular CRMs like Salesforce Service Cloud and Zendesk, with a user-friendly interface that support managers and agents can start using right away.

Using SupportLogic’s predictive alerts, data companies Qlik and Nutanix decreased customer escalations by 30% and 40%, respectively, while Fivetran reduced customer churn by 25%.

Beyond SupportLogic SX, other AI-focused companies are also making it easy to integrate AI into a wide spectrum of industries. SaaS-based companies like DataRobot and Canoe are leveraging AI in the world of finance, while health tech startups are at the forefront of innovations in healthcare, providing virtual nursing assistants, disease detection, and robot-assisted surgery. 

Myth: AI is a burden for support agents.

Reality: AI can help improve agent engagement and reduce burnout, leading to better employee retention.

Customer support has been hit hard by The Great Resignation, with agent burnout and call center attrition on the rise. One way to mitigate this is by increasing employee engagement and improving coaching. The right tools, like AI-powered data and analytics, can help you do that at scale.

AI-powered technology helps agents create more efficient workflows, reduce case review time, and improve backlog management—to name just a few. It also helps with agent coaching—a cornerstone of agent engagement. Support logic’s latest AI-powered customer service product, Assisted Case Evaluation (ACE), makes it easier for team leaders to review agent cases, provide agent coaching, and increase agent engagement by fostering career development.

Engaged agents are more likely to stick with your company, which makes for a happier support team and a better customer journey.

Strengthen your business with AI-powered customer service

From flashy new apps to AI chatbots, it’s natural to be skeptical of new tech. After all, your support organization has processes that work and feel comfortable. But a new era in B2B support is underway, and maintaining the status quo could prevent you from better serving your customers…and your business.

Use AI-powered customer service tools to predict and prevent escalations, reduce customer churn, and protect your bottom line. Request a demo today.