Even before the pandemic caused long wait times to reach an agent, there was growing consumer interest in using self-service to resolve questions and issues. Now, a Gartner survey conducted in 2021 shows that 71% of customers prefer to resolve their issues without having to contact customer service.1
Self-service can be a win-win for companies and their customers. Effortless self-service experiences increase digital adoption and boost customer satisfaction and Net Promoter Scores, while deflecting interactions from contact center agents.
Given the past failures in self-service and current contact center challenges, it’s more important now than ever for customer experience and contact center leaders to embrace conversational artificial intelligence (AI) for human-like, self-service interactions. With an intuitive, conversational experience, companies can improve self-service completion rates, enhance the customer experience and reduce contact center volumes and cost.
What You’ll Learn in This Guide
- The difference between simple chatbots and intelligent virtual assistants
- How to create the business case for self-service
- Whether it makes sense to build an intelligent virtual assistant yourself
- Essential capabilities in a conversational self-service solution
- Why a conversational automation platform is important
1. “Younger Generations Increasingly Self-Serve Through Non-Company Digital Channels,” Deb Alvord, Smart Customer Service, May 2021
2. “Enable Customer Self-Service to Deliver Better Support,” Gartner, 2020
