Hybrid AI and its benefits to different support functions
In our previous article, we introduced four AI technologies – Elastic Search, Semantic Search, Conversational AI, and Generative AI – that are transforming customer support. These technologies offer benefits such as improved search results, enhanced customer experience, and increased efficiency. However, their implementation has been limited so far, and businesses need to adopt a hybrid approach to leverage their strengths fully.
The customer support ecosystem involves various stakeholders, including support teams, product and content management teams, and engineering teams. The support tier and ticket escalation structure are designed to handle customer queries efficiently. The first level of support is usually a self-service portal, where customers can access resources such as FAQs, knowledge bases, and tutorials. If the issue is not resolved at this level, the ticket is escalated to live support. The complexity of the issue determines how many levels of support the ticket needs to go through before it’s resolved.
The self-service support portal is essential for customers and businesses alike. Customers can find answers to their queries instantly without the need to contact support teams. This reduces wait times, leading to a better customer experience. On the other hand, businesses benefit from a reduction in open ticket rates, leading to cost savings. However, the quality and accuracy of the information in the portal are crucial. If the information is outdated or irrelevant, customers will need to escalate their queries to live support, defeating the purpose of the self-service portal.
Live support is an essential component of customer support. Customers who cannot find answers to their queries through self-service support escalate their tickets to live support. The ticket escalation process can be complex, and different levels of support may be required to handle the query. However, the longer the ticket stays in the support queue, the more dissatisfied the customer becomes. Therefore, reducing first response and ticket resolution times is crucial for a better customer experience.
Engineering teams are responsible for developing new features and capabilities. However, they may find themselves clogged with an endless stream of escalated support tickets. This can be overwhelming and lead to delays in feature development. Therefore, it’s essential to strike a balance between supporting existing customers and developing new features.
Product and content management teams are responsible for orchestrating support operations. They need to ensure that relevant and available resources are in place to address customer needs and questions. This involves managing the content in the self-service support portal, ensuring that it’s accurate, relevant, and up-to-date. They also need to ensure that live support teams have access to the right resources to address customer queries efficiently.
The growing complexity of product operations is one of the main challenges faced by customer support teams today. As products become more sophisticated, customers require more detailed and technical assistance, which can be difficult to provide in a timely and accurate manner. This can lead to longer response times, lower customer satisfaction, and increased support costs.
Another challenge faced by support teams is the overwhelming amount of manual and technical content that must be managed and maintained. With the increasing number of products and features offered by businesses, the amount of support material can quickly become unmanageable, making it difficult to provide customers with accurate and up-to-date information.
Finally, outdated content is also a challenge for customer support teams. With the pace of technological change, manuals, and other support materials can quickly become obsolete, leaving customers with inaccurate or incomplete information. This can lead to customer frustration, lower satisfaction, and increased support costs.
A hybrid AI architecture that integrates conversational AI, generative AI, semantic search, and elastic search offers numerous benefits for customer support solutions, improving both the customer experience and internal support processes.
One area that benefits from hybrid AI is self-service support. With personalized and accurate answers to their questions, customers can find solutions to their issues quickly and efficiently. This personalized support is possible with the use of conversational AI and semantic search, which enables customers to communicate easily with the support team and receive accurate and relevant responses. This results in significant cost savings for businesses, as open ticket rates are reduced and support teams can focus on more complex issues.
Live (agent) support also benefits from a hybrid AI architecture. Customers receive a better support experience from knowledgeable agents who have easy and fast access to relevant information. The integration of generative AI and elastic search enables support agents to quickly find the information they need and formulate responses in an accurate and personalized manner, reducing first response time and ticket resolution time. This means that support agents can handle a greater volume of customer inquiries, leading to increased productivity and reduced operational costs for businesses.
Content management is another area that benefits from a hybrid AI architecture. Customers receive accurate and useful information and content thanks to the use of generative AI that creates automated responses to frequently asked questions, product descriptions, and other support materials. Content managers benefit from data-driven content management, as machine learning algorithms from generative AI and semantic search enhance the accuracy of search results, leading to faster resolution times and higher customer satisfaction levels. With a hybrid AI architecture, content managers can focus on creating new content and improving the overall quality of customer support materials.
In conclusion, a hybrid AI architecture that integrates conversational AI, generative AI, semantic search, and elastic search offers significant benefits to customers and internal stakeholders. Self-service support is enhanced with personalized and accurate answers, resulting in reduced open ticket rates and cost savings for businesses. Live (agent) support is improved with better support experiences, faster response and resolution times, and increased productivity for support teams. Content management is also improved, with customers receiving accurate and useful information and content and content managers benefiting from data-driven content management.