Any customer-centric organization wants to ensure they respond to and support customers quickly and accurately. One of the best ways to make that happen is by lowering ticket volumes. A reduction in ticket volumes won’t occur because customers stop needing help or asking questions. Rather, with the aid of AI-powered customer support software, you can optimize self-service. As a result, it can deliver fast answers, so those customers aren’t waiting in a queue for agents to help them.
AI-powered customer support elevates self-service.
Most customers are quite comfortable with self-service. In a Microsoft survey, 86 percent of respondents said they expect your website to include this. In another survey, 69 percent of customers said they want to resolve issues on their own if possible. However, that doesn’t mean they’ll tolerate slow, unhelpful, or inaccurate self-service. Unfortunately, that’s the case with traditional chatbots, and they typically make little impact on ticket volume.
These chatbots only focus on keywords and deliver answers based on that. Customers don’t get the answers they need, turning the request into a ticket, which clogs up agent queues. Conversely, AI-powered customer support has the potential to significantly lower ticket volume.
AI-powered solutions work better because:
- The tool comprehends sentence structure, meaning, synonyms, tone, and nuance.
- It looks at sentiment and intent in the queries posed by customers.
- The AI then reviews lots of documents to retrieve the best answer. If it’s a repetitive question, such as how to do something in an account, it solves those automatically.
- It can also classify spam accurately, so those don’t filter into queues.
- You can also build custom workflows with AI to mirror probable customer journeys, so the AI engine is ready to respond.
Lower ticket volumes are achievable with deflection.
Deflection in customer support is key to reducing ticket volumes. To deflect means that the AI responds automatically, and the ticket never enters an agent queue. In most cases, these are going to be simple, repetitive questions such as, “Where is my order?”
That type of question will have a different answer for each customer, but it still doesn’t require agent intervention. Instead, the AI can derive the correct answer in seconds. You can see how successful this can be with AI in our case study with Abra. Our AI deflected up to 40% of new tickets, which in turn helped them increase their ROI.
Turn repetitive questions into knowledge base articles.
Another way to lower ticket volume is to build or improve your knowledge base. AI solutions can help you streamline this by tagging and pulling the correct answers into the repository. You can also use your prewritten macros to build out your knowledge base.
Provide a robust, searchable knowledge base and keep adding to it as you see more of the same questions. Customers can then find what they need and never need to interact with your AI or agents.
Prepare for seasonal or event-related higher ticket volume times.
Depending on your business, you’ll see peaks in ticket volume at different times. Retailers and shippers experience it during the holidays. Educational organizations see higher volumes at the beginning of school years. And any company may see spikes after releasing a new product or updating it.
Being ready for these is critical, and AI can help. First, you want to ensure your AI engine is constantly ingesting new data and continuing to learn. Second, you may need to update macros to help with possible new questions. Third, add new content to your knowledge base that relates to the questions customers are most likely to ask.
Being proactive in these ways can go a long way in lowering ticket volumes. As a result, customers have a better experience, and your agents can focus on more complex inquiries.
AI-powered customer support is essential to decrease ticket volume.
If reducing this metric is a goal for your organization, then it’s time to apply AI-powered customer support. Implementing a platform that enables this creates a better customer experience and lessens the strain on your agents.
