Automation can be a game-changer for your business. That’s why it’s so important that your potential AI provider plays by the rules. But what are the rules?
Follow our ultimate checklist to know what to look for when shopping for the highest quality AI, best ROI, and smartest opportunities for customer experience optimization across all channels.
Quick and transparent implementation
Getting started with automation shouldn’t take ages. But the implementation process should provide you with the basic skills and training needed to take full ownership of the automation process within your support team. Ideally, this includes getting a solid, data-driven overview of what to automate first. Depending on your industry, it is entirely possible to hit the ground running with automation after only 3-6 weeks.
CRM Integration
No matter if you’re using Salesforce, Zendesk, Freshworks, LiveChat, or Efecte - a native CRM integration makes life easier for everyone. From personalized messaging to quicker conversation flows and lower average handling times (AHT), the combination of automation and customer service software is bound to save your business both time and money.
Back-end integration
Integrating APIs significantly increases the possibility of end-to-end automation without any agent intervention: A custom back-end integration with your order management system (OMS) allows the bot to have more valuable conversations and provide customers with data directly related to their request. Without it, agents would need to tediously copy and paste information from the OMS, which takes longer and leaves more room for errors.
Omnichannel support
From email to chat, social, or mobile messaging apps: omnichannel communication is the new normal, and any AI worth its salt needs to keep up. With the right tools, including integrations and well-thought-out conversation design, you can ensure that your customers can not only communicate with you through their channel of choice, but that information between channels flows seamlessly. This means that customers don’t have to put up with extra waiting times or repeat information as they move between modes of communication.
Multilingual AI
For brands with a global reach, multilingual, native-language support is crucial. Surprisingly, this is where most AI providers fail, especially with more complex languages. Many use translation tools that end up decreasing accuracy and risk negatively impacting a brand’s tone of voice. Instead, look for AI that has been trained from historical data.
Easy to use (and train!)
You don’t need to be a developer to get started with automation, and you don't need to know a line of code to train your AI. Creating, overseeing and analyzing automation processes should and can be easily managed within your customer support team, with integrations forming the basis for an intuitively designed front end. Ideally, your AI provider’s UX should always allow you to start simple and become as sophisticated as you need. Not only will this relieve your support team, but also improve your overall ROI.
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Making customer satisfaction a priority
Automation is more than just deflection at any rate. Ultimately, it’s a tool to make your customers happier. That’s why you should make sure your automation provider has your customers’ best interest at heart, and can provide reliable processes to track the quality of their experience through feedback surveys or end flows in your (chat) automation software.
Measurable AI quality
Automation technology has quickly evolved in recent years, but so have customer expectations. So how can you compare results? Benchmarking studies are a good place to start, as they can reveal a lot about the accuracy of your AI provider’s model. Also look out for easy-to-use training and analytics tools. With age comes wisdom - especially for virtual agents, which will grow more accurate as they learn from real interactions with real customers over time.
Security
Customers have become more wary of giving out their data, and rightfully so. Check for compliance with new regulations, such as GDPR in Europe, to find out if potential providers make the cut when it comes to aligning with your company’s security standards. Always make sure to check for internal security policies, and ask about designated data protection personnel and certifications, such as single-sign on (SSO).
Success stories
You would vet all of your human candidates, so why not make sure your potential AI provider has a proven track record of success with similar companies in your industry? Not only are customer stories a great way to get a feel for past accomplishments in numbers, they can also provide insights into the way your provider approaches the onboarding process and how your overall values may align.
Ready to make a decision?
Call us biased, but here at Ultimate, we do practice what we preach when it comes to automation.
Check out our recent customer stories to find out how Ultimate has supercharged automation and AI accuracy rates across channels, industries, and languages within only a few weeks:
Tomorrow, a sustainable fintech company, reduced their average handling time (AHT) by 50% with our multilingual virtual agents.
Finnair, in the height of the Covid crisis, reached a chat automation rate of 50% in both Finnish and English.
Posti, in the run up to the busy Christmas season, automated 80% of incoming enquiries within just one month.
Get started with automation in just 14 days with our Onboarding Bootcamp.