How to Set Up Your Own Customer Service AI Chatbot Platform

By Machielle Thomas

If there’s one word to describe online customers, it would probably be impatient

In the fast-paced business landscape we live in today, every second matters, and your customer service needs to provide users with answers to their queries stat. 

And whether you like it or not, the only way to provide that level of service is by implementing generative AI. Since you’re here, it means you’re ready to give your customer service the boost it requires. 

Today, you’ll learn:

  • How to set up your custom customer service AI chatbot platform;
  • Why implementing a generative AI chatbot platform is a must;
  • And how Forethought.ai can help transform your customer support.

Let’s get right to it!

Setting Up Your Customer Service AI Chatbot Platform: A Step-by-Step Guide

Let’s not waste any time. Here are the eight necessary steps to take when building and implementing your AI chatbot platform:

Step 1: Define Your Objectives & Use Cases

Start by identifying the specific goals and objectives for implementing a customer service AI chatbot. Consider the problems you want the chatbot to solve and the tasks it should be able to handle.

Think about what you want to achieve by setting up an AI chatbot platform and create a list of measurable goals, such as reducing the retention rate by 30%

This will allow you to better measure the platform’s performance once the system is implemented. 

Step 2: Choose an Appropriate Platform

It’s possible to build your AI chatbot platform from scratch. 

But why go the unnecessary extra mile when you have a tried and trusted framework right in front of you? Opting for an established AI chatbot platform like our very own Forethought offers numerous benefits, saving you time and money on developing and testing your own framework. 

By choosing the Forethought generative AI platform, you’ll be able to take advantage of the industry-leading automation solutions to provide your customers with a stellar experience at every stage of their journey. 

Learn more about our platform and see for yourself!

Step 3: Design the Conversation Flow

Once you have the platform, it’s time to get it to work. The first step is designing the conversation flow. 

To do that, consider various user inputs, create a dialogue tree, and determine the responses for different scenarios. Don’t overthink them, though. Make the answers quick and concise. Be also sure to establish a consistent brand tone of voice. 

Also, when using Forethought, you’ll be able to draft more personalized answers, further enhancing your customer experience. 

Step 4: Integrate Your Chatbot with Backend Systems

We’ve already mentioned that our platform enables a high level of personalization. To provide that, though, you must feed our generative AI with the necessary data. The fastest way to achieve this is by integrating the chatbot platform with your backend systems. 

By giving the chatbot access to your databases and APIs, it will quickly learn all the relevant information about your business and clients, allowing it to recognize customers and craft more personalized answers. 

Step 5: Train and Test Your Chatbot

Feeding your chatbot with relevant data is one thing. Another is training it on how to use that information in conversation with your customers. 

The best way to do that is through testing, testing, and, you guessed it, testing. 

Run your test runs and closely monitor the responses and performance of your AI chatbot platform. This will allow you to quickly adjust any necessary corrections, ensuring the end product is as close to perfection as possible.  

Step 6: Choose a Deployment Option

On which platform do you want to deploy your refined AI customer service system? On a website? Mobile app? Email? All available platforms?

Each platform may come with unique requirements and considerations, so think about it and test various deployment options to see how your chatbot performs. 

At Forethought, we provide support for all available platforms so that you can rest assured you receive top-quality service across your channels. 

Step 7: Provide Human Backup

Even the most advanced generative AI platforms (like ours) can’t handle all customer requests. Not yet, at least. And until that day comes, you need to create a mechanism that seamlessly transfers users to human representatives.

This is crucial if you want to maintain the highest level of service, ensuring a customer gets a timely and informed response with queries too complex for an AI chatbot to handle. 

Step 8: Monitor and Analyze the Platform’s Performance

Having completed all the previous steps, the one last thing left to do is launch your AI chatbot. However, it doesn’t mean you can now sit back and watch your conversions and customer satisfaction skyrocket. 

There’s always room for improvement. Furthermore, with a rapidly changing AI landscape and the evolution of customer behaviors, you should continuously monitor and adjust your platform’s responses and performance. 

The Forethought Discover feature, for instance, provides teams with real-time feedback, insights, and suggestions, allowing them to quickly react, improve, and maximize ROI. 

Advantages of an AI Chatbot Platform

At this point, you might still question whether AI-driven customer service is a way forward. After all, setting up such a platform does seem like a lengthy process. 

Well, let us dispel your doubts by listing the most significant upsides of an AI chatbot platform, such as our very own Forethought:

  • 24/7 Availability
    AI chatbots don’t need a break, providing 24/7 customer support without losing the quality of service – an elegant solution for businesses operating in various time zones.
  • Instant Responses
    Today’s customers don’t want to wait for a response to their query. They want an immediate answer to any question or complaint they have, and that is something only generative AI can provide. 
  • Cost-Efficiency
    By automating routine and simple tasks through AI chatbots, businesses can significantly reduce customer support costs.
  • Boost in Productivity
    Mundane task automation also boosts customer service team productivity, allowing them to focus on the most significant tasks and issues. 
  • Scalability
    One of the greatest advantages of platforms like Forethought is that they can simultaneously handle large volumes of queries, making them the best option for large enterprises and growing businesses. 

And these are merely five of the numerous advantages AI chatbot platforms can provide you with. Oh yes, there are more. 

Unfortunately, we don’t have time to go through them all. Today, we just wanted to give you an overview of the benefits of such a platform. 

We did cover them in more detail in this blog post, though, so be sure to check it out if you’re interested in learning more about the advantages of AI in customer service. 

Elevate Your Customer Service with Forethought

Generative AI is revolutionizing customer service. 

And while we’re still a long way from AI taking over customer support entirely, chatbots provide businesses with numerous advantages, such as 24/7 support, instant responses, better scalability, increased productivity, and cost efficacy. 

Setting up such a system, however, can be tricky. It doesn’t have to be, though. Not if you work with Forethought.ai. 

As one of the leading generative AI platforms, Forethought has helped numerous companies of all sizes and industries elevate their customer service. 

Learn more about our customer success stories and see for yourself how the Forethought AI chatbot platform can help your organization.

Request your demo today and become a part of the customer service revolution. 

Dive in.

Interested in generative AI for customer support? Check out this guide to learn about the 3 key pillars you need to get started.

Get your copy
Decor Half Circle Orange
Call to action decor Call to action decor