The Decline of Customer Service and the Rise of Self-Service

New technologies allow consumers to freely explore seemingly endless amounts of products and information online. Because of this, consumers are becoming increasingly self-reliant. People check-in to flights and hotels with automated machines and purchase groceries through check-out stations. Consumers are responding positively to self-service systems and the need to interact with customer service employees is rapidly decreasing.

With this rise of self-service, more customers are buying products through online retailers and shopping sites are growing fast. Most consumers are pleased with the effortlessness of shopping online. However, when customers do encounter a problem, finding solutions can often be tedious and frustrating. Retailers work hard to constantly improve the online shopping experience but many are still using out-dated customer service techniques. Search engines and FAQ pages are not satisfying customers and businesses have to look for new ways to allow consumers to navigate themselves through potential issues.

In the past, many businesses thought their only solution to customer relationship management (CRM) was to create call centers with a large trained staff. Smaller businesses struggled with the cost of such an extensive increase in employees and larger business had too much traffic to adequately provide helpful service to every consumer. Companies are relentlessly creating new technologies and trends for online shopping and the old strategies of CRM no longer apply. Consumers will have questions and concerns and they expect to receive answers quickly and easily. According to Consumer Technographics, 57% of US online consumers report that they are very likely to abandon an online purchase if they cannot find quick answers to their questions. The dichotomy of online consumers is that they both demand guidance and self-reliance. For many businesses, virtual agents have proven to be the most effective way to help consumers help themselves.

What are Virtual Agents?

Intelligent virtual agents (IVAs) are programs that work as online customer service representatives. They have a human appearance and a conversational style of speaking. These agents interact directly with the customer to help with a variety of online services. Essentially, an IVA is the ideal customer service employee. They have an extensive knowledge of the business, can speak several languages, work 24 hours a day, and can personally help hundreds or thousands of customers all at once. The agent provides personal and direct guidance for consumers, making it more effective than search engines or FAQ pages. Many companies have successfully implemented an IVA program including Ikea, Ebay, and Paypal. Now, customers visiting these sites can ask “Anna“, or “Alex” or “Sarah” to help them find what they find what they are looking for or help get them the answers they need.

How Virtual Agents Can Benefit your Business

Using IVAs to help with customer service can help a company in many ways. They can converse and answer questions, giving customers personal and immediate assistance.

Consumers can chat with the representative in a way that feels familiar because it builds on the in-store customer service experience. The more self-reliant customers prefer an automated representative because they feel less inclined to rush and freely ask any and as many questions as they like.

The virtual agent has the unique ability to be everywhere at once. Human agents can only help a certain number of customers for a certain number of hours. As a company grows, maintaining a trained staff that can sufficiently respond to a growing number of buyers can be costly. AVIs can help customers find solutions without contacting customer service representatives.

Most of the information consumers are looking for is already available online. However, navigating through pages of information without help can be frustrating and potentially keep customers from returning to the eCommerce retailer. Mark Gaydos, VP of worldwide marketing for VirtuOZ explained that simply giving the customer a big repository of information and hoping they find what they need isn’t enough. “Virtual agents have the ability to instantly assist customers rather than leaving them to look for the information on their own.”

AVIs can also work as an information gatherer for the business to improve the customer’s experience when they need to speak with a human agent. Customer concerns can be transferred to the appropriate call center and provide personalized information to the customer representative making things easier and faster for both the representative and the consumer.

In Closing

As new technologies and trends develop in online shopping, AVIs allow customer services to adapt and improve along side these changes. Consumers are now able to shop with mobile devices and through social media. While many people are struggling with using search engines on new programs and devices, AVIs are making an easy transition to phone apps, Facebook, and even Second Life. As businesses experiment with new ways to reach customers, AVIs are effortlessly going along for the ride.