The latest research from Ambit suggests our customers are feeling the pinch from the talent shortage–over 81% of respondents said they were struggling to recruit experienced customer service staff.
But the “show” must go on, and businesses in the retail and utilities sectors often face surge periods, which can overload their customer support team, create longer wait times and sometimes impact the customer experience.
If this is something your business is facing, it could be time to recruit a digital employee–an AI chatbot, to take some of the weight off your team’s shoulders.
A digital employee is on duty 24/7. They can manage an infinite amount of enquiries at any time. Most importantly, they genuinely keep customers happy.
Why? Because speed matters to customers.
Recent research out of Zendesk suggests the most important aspect of a good customer experience is speed. 60% of respondents said that getting a response from a provider quickly was their no.1 priority. And, roughly 61% of customers say they would switch to a new brand after one bad experience. Needless to say, it’s critical to pick up the pace.
Need more convincing? Salesforce did similar research. The outcome: If a company’s customer service is excellent, 78% of consumers will do business with that company again, even after a mistake.
Making a difference with a conversational AI chatbot
Ambit helped New Zealand’s leading “buy now, pay later” provider, Laybuy, onboard Hugo who delivered a 30% lift in CSAT (customer satisfaction), reduced volumes for support agents by 70% and, in just nine months, was managing over 70% of customer queries.
“Employing Hugo was an important and innovative step to help manage the increasing demand on Laybuy’s customer service team as the company continued on its rapid growth trajectory, but without adding additional cost into the business,” said Gary Rohloff, Co-founder and Managing Director at Laybuy.
Another of Ambit’s digital employees–Watt, was recruited by Vector, New Zealand’s largest distributor of electricity and gas. Watt manages 2,000 calls a month (5% of the call volume) and handled 30,000 conversations in three months. Vector sees engagement growing and its approach is to continually add to Watt’s capability, so results are improving as time goes on.
Read about Vector's success with their chatbot, Watt
Learn more about how Laybuy uses Hugo
And to end the call…
The Zendesk research had another important outcome–50% of consumers said they would switch to a competitor after one bad experience, and a further 80% said they’d definitely switch to a competitor after more than one bad experience. They also discovered that 68% of agents reported feeling overwhelmed.