To what extent is ChatGPT going to revolutionise customer service?
By Martin Brown, CCO at FM Outsource
Three months after its launch, ChatGPT by OpenAI has reached over 100 million monthly users, becoming the fastest-growing consumer application in history.
Many customer service teams face the challenge of providing quality customer care while managing high volume enquiries. This has led some businesses to turn to chat bot technology, with a lot of organisations already using the technology to handle basic customer enquiries. However, it has so far had limited success, with our research finding that the channel which customers believe is most likely to deliver a poor outcome is currently chat bots (36%).
This is likely due to businesses using them for jobs beyond their existing capabilities, and not having human operators immediately accessible to customers when interacting with a chat bot. This is often done to cut costs quickly, which is not a sustainable approach to introducing them to business operations.
With its ability to offer seemingly more human responses than existing chat bot technology, ChatGPT might be the low-cost and efficient boost the customer service industry needs to improve the successes and people’s perceptions of chat bots.
How can the industry utilise ChatGPT?
Until now, chat bots have been used to simulate very simple human conversations through text and voice interactions. ChatGPT now enables customer service teams to create virtual assistants using natural language processing (NLP) capabilities to handle more complex incoming queries from customers. They can be used to answer questions, provide guidance on products or services, respond to complaints, and even handle payments.
Speed and effectiveness
ChatGPT, as one of the leading providers of AI-powered chat bot technology, is designed to understand complex sentence structures and identify intent quickly. This allows businesses to scale their services at a much faster rate than would otherwise be possible when relying solely on manual processes. More sophisticated AI-powered chat bots are also able to provide consistent responses regardless of who or what is handling the enquiry. Something that can be difficult to achieve with human operators. Having consistency and speed in communications will significantly improve customer satisfaction due to the accurate and timely responses people will receive.
Additionally, customer service teams can use chat bot technology by integrating bots into existing messaging apps such as WhatsApp and Twitter. This allows customers to get the help they need faster and eliminate time spent waiting for customer service teams to respond. It also gives businesses a chance to proactively reach out to their customers via these channels to personalise the customer service experience.
Personalisation
The ChatGPT platform offers access to an extensive library of conversational templates that can be used by customer service teams to quickly craft personalised conversations. This helps to create a more human-like experience which allows customers to develop meaningful relationships and connections with the brand.
Customer service teams should be using chat bot technology to collect feedback and valuable insights from their customers. By gathering feedback through surveys and other conversational tools such as polls, chat bots can provide intel into what customers are looking for in terms of product or service offering. Furthermore, chat bots can track key metrics such as response times, customer engagement, and customer satisfaction. Having this information allows teams to better tailor the customer experience and ensure that it suits the needs of the client base.
A human-bot approach
However, we must manage expectations due to the limitations AI technology currently has, even in light of the launch of ChatGPT, and avoid relying on it too much. It is undoubtable that a human element to customer service does need to remain. In our research, 34% of people stated that one of the main components of bad customer service is not having the option to talk to a human. This calls for a human-bot approach.
There are some aspects to customer care that technology simply cannot yet provide, including having sensitive conversations about affordability and conveying emotions of respect and empathy. Therefore, chat bots and ChatGPT should be used in tandem with human operators.
For example, the system can be programmed to respond to some requests, such as returns and exchanges, whilst leaving more sensitive and complex enquiries to humans. This means simple customer queries can be handled quickly and effectively, whilst other issues that are less able to be dealt with successfully by chat bots – considering the current level of technological development – can be treated with consideration by the existing team. This best of both worlds solution allows businesses to embrace the opportunities offered by the technology, whilst protecting and maintaining customer satisfaction.
Overall, chat bot technology has the potential to transform the customer communications process. By leveraging the power of automated conversations within existing human-operated systems, teams can ensure higher levels of customer satisfaction, while also scaling their services more quickly and effectively. For customer service teams looking to create better experiences and reduce workloads, chat bot technology is a highly effective solution.
