Like it or not, we’re in the era of AI. New innovation in Generative AI and Large Language Models (LLMs) has transformed digital experiences across most industries. For companies facing growing customer demands for digital experiences and dwindling patience for laborious and impersonal engagement, AI offers a chance to leap ahead of the CX curve. For utilities, with important and necessary concerns about safety, security, and privacy, AI creates new challenges and concerns.
A recent Gartner report predicted a future that maximizes AI. By 2025, Gartner reports, 80% of customer service and support organizations will be using some form of Generative AI to in the CX. But, that doesn’t mean exposing customers directly to a GenAI chatbot for customer service. Customers clearly don’t like chatbots very much. The Journal of Marketing studied more than 35,000 customer service chatbot interactions and reported that 66% received only a 1 out of 5 stars. We can see from a variety of studies that customers just aren’t keen on the current generation of chatbots.
- 78% of customers have used a chatbot within the past 12 months, but 80% of those customers reported that the chatbot increased their frustration with the experience.
- 78% of customers were forced to connect with a live operator after chatbots failed to resolve their needs
- 63% reported that the chatbot didn’t resolve their issue
- 72% of customers surveyed indicated that using the chatbot felt like a waste of their time
So, chatbots, at least traditional ones, are not the answer. In fact 54% of customers believe that a phone call with a live customer service representative provides the fastest resolution and best overall customer experience.
With stats like that, the utility industry’s hesitancy to embrace chat or expose AI directly to customers makes sense and remains consistent with customer desires. But, AI can still make a big impact on Customer Service and Support in the industry. Tools and advanced capabilities powered by AI have applications in virtually every area of customer service operations. We offer this helpful guide to the Top 3 AI Applications for leveraging AI safely and affordably to improve productivity and CSAT in the new year.
AI for Real Time CSR Support
Imagine a chatbot fully trained in all of the utility’s policies, programs and website content. Now, add training from the customer service knowledge base, along with hundreds or thousands of call transcripts from first call resolutions. It’s a safe bet that an advanced chatbot trained with that information would be quicker and easier to use by your customer service representatives (CSRs) than those outdated knowledge base tools.
Advanced chatbots with AI capabilities provide instantaneous and tailored aid to CSRs in real time on customer calls. With advanced algorithms, natural language processing, and comprehensive awareness of the utility policies and programs, AI tools can provide relevant prompts and detailed answers to your CSRs for their customers in real time for prompt, accurate and consistent responses. AI can help agents be “right the first time” with consistency and better efficiency, and what customer wouldn’t appreciate that benefit?
- Increase First Call Resolutions
- Reduce Talk Time
- Improve Consistency, Accuracy, and Productivity in the Customer Service Center
AI Optimizes The Agent Lifecycle
Customer Service struggles with high turnover rates, long recruiting cycles, and training attrition more than any other department in most organizations. Staffing problems like these directly impact customer service performance and CSAT. AI can mitigate these risks by analyzing and enhancing the agent experience from recruitment through onboarding and nesting to reduce attrition, enhance quality, and increase agent AND customer satisfaction.
- Candidate Screening - Companies using AI tools improve the quality of their candidate assessment to find the people best suited to customer service responsibilities. Chatbots with special training engage with applications to gauge their emotional awareness, language and decision making skills in sync with your ideal candidate profiles.
- Personalized Training - AI tools integrated to training workflows analyze individual CSR learning styles and progress to deliver personalized training and coaching modules based on their ongoing needs and performance.
- Performance Analytics and Monitoring - AI driven analytics trained by performance goals and profiles can monitor early agent performance to ensure proper nesting progress and productivity. Tools can assess and enhance live customer interactions.
- Foster Continuous Learning - Enrich the Quality Assurance process with AI based feedback loops to enable agents with ongoing coaching and training refreshers tailored to their specific performance needs.
Emotional AI
According to New Voice Media, 86% of customers claim that a positive emotional connection with a customer service representative would make them likely to do business again with that brand. While energy utilities don’t usually have to worry about customers defecting, the study tells us that a positive emotional engagement and outcome with Customer Service builds a better customer relationship.
Tools and platforms enhanced with AI capabilities can enrich the data and insights available to utilities about customers’ emotional connection to the CX. These insights add to the emotional intelligence of your teams that contributes to designing and delivering a rewarding customer experience.
- Sentiment Analysis - AI can analyze customer responses on calls or surveys to analyze their sentiment related to key interactions with the customer service operation at the utility. Platforms even synthesize sentiment and emotional content from social media reviews and Voice of the Customer channels to develop a complete picture of sentiment at different milestones on the customer journey.
- Real Time Feedback - AI enabled tools can be trained to deliver real time insights during customer interactions to arm agents with indication of customers sentiment, impatience, or the intensity of an issue to help CSRs adjust their tone to align best with customers’ emotional queues. That real time telemetry in live interactions improves the chances for a positive resolution.
- Personalization Algorithms - AI informed tools trained on customer data sets can help agents personalize the customer experience based on relevant and timely details, which reduces customer call fatigue and builds trust with the customer that CSRs understand their issue.
Utilities have a proper and institutional inhibition from racing forward with new technology. The nature of the customer relationship, critical importance of safety, security and privacy related to customer data, and regulatory scrutiny rewards a thoughtful approach to experimenting with AI. As we’ve shown in this article, though, utilities have some immediate opportunities to use AI in safe and affordable ways to support the Customer Service Center and CSRs to deliver a modern utility CX. Pick a project, develop a pilot, and find a partner with experience in delivering tools and capabilities supported by AI, and we’ll bet your customers value the enriched experiences.