🤖 How to Prepare for Artificial Intelligence with Zendesk
Artificial intelligence (AI) is having its moment right now, which is super exciting, but it can also be a little overwhelming. There are so many new things that can be accomplished with AI, whether it’s generative text, art creation, or internal automation. So, it’s really important to follow these three steps to ensure you’re executing an AI strategy that is right for you and your business.
Table of Contents
– **Step 1: Define Your AI Goals**
– **Step 2: Placement and Putting Artificial Intelligence into Action**
– **Step 3: What Not to Do**
– **Resources for Zendesk Customers**
– **FAQ**
Step 1: Define Your AI Goals
The first step in preparing for AI is to define your AI goals. What do you want AI to achieve for your team? What does AI mean to you? Identify growth areas and understand the significance of AI for your business. Once your goals are clear, you’ll be able to execute your artificial intelligence strategy more effectively.
At Zendesk, we’ve observed four key ways AI transforms help desk environments. Firstly, leverage Zendesk AI for self-service and ticket deflection. Bots act as your frontline workers, deflecting basic queries, collecting customer information with messaging, and promoting self-service articles. This not only saves time for your support team but also increases ticket deflection rates and customer satisfaction.
Additionally, artificial intelligence can help boost your agent productivity. Zendesk AI is fully integrated into the customer experience, from bots that deflect and resolve queries to intelligence in the agent workspace. Agents are empowered to be more productive and focus on high-value tasks.
Thirdly, AI enables the delivery of more personalized experiences. Our pre-trained AI-powered bots assist in tailoring interactions, with 74% of agents believing that AI tools enhance personalization. With Zendesk’s pre-trained bots, we can do just that.
Finally, AI helps businesses make more data-driven decisions, allowing you to monitor your age and performance, avoid potential escalations by proactively identifying trends, understanding customer intent, and more.
Step 2: Placement and Putting Artificial Intelligence into Action
Next, let’s talk about placement and putting artificial intelligence into action. There are two main ways to use AI in your business: externally or customer-facing, or internally within your team’s workflows.
Let’s talk about customer-facing AI first. An externally facing AI solution is great for deflecting basic customer inquiries and acting as your first line of defense for promoting self-service. When a customer needs help, they want it ASAP, but most organizations don’t have the support staff to be available 24/7. You can reduce or even eliminate the time your customers have to wait for assistance by providing automated support using chatbots.
Chatbots are an automated conversational customer support fueled by AI to help support simple tasks, create better experiences for your customers, increase your ticket deflection rate, and work alongside your agents to give them a helping hand.
Now let’s talk about your employee experience and using artificial intelligence to improve it. Using AI internally is a great way to lessen the load of your agents and admins. Artificial intelligence can help automate repetitive tasks, ensure proper ticket routing, play to your agent skill sets, manage a higher influx of requests without adding headcount, boost employee engagement, and more.
Finally, as a solution to silo data, many businesses are turning to the use of AI and chatbots. AI-powered customer service tools and applications such as chatbots make it easier for businesses to compile and view their data to streamline customer service.
Step 3: What Not to Do
So far, we’ve covered the three main steps to success for how to prepare for artificial intelligence, but we wanted to make sure we covered what not to do. Like we’ve said, AI is definitely the hot new trend in technology, so we want to make sure we know the dos and the don’ts before getting it up and running.
The first of these don’ts is having a lack of direction and prioritization. In our 2023 Zendesk report titled “IT Leaders Tackle New Challenges with Security, AI, and CX,” we learned that over half of IT leaders surveyed expressed concern that AI is changing rapidly, which affects their ability to keep up with the competition. While artificial intelligence is changing day by day, it’s important to know that this doesn’t have to limit you and your business’s use of the tool. Think back to our first step for success: understanding your goals. These goals will be your guiding light on your journey with AI, and we’ll always be there to help you navigate this brand new landscape.
Our second don’t is poor data quality and underprepared tech stacks. 60% of surveyed leaders reported that their organization struggles to collect and label sufficient high-quality data to train AI models effectively for automation. Just under half of survey respondents report concerns with implementing generative AI in their tech stack. It’s important to partner with trusted vendors like Zendesk so your business can implement artificial intelligence into your customer or employee experience without risking violations of data privacy and to help make data-backed decisions.
Finally, it’s important to recognize and work with skill gaps in your teams. With 57% of IT leaders reporting skill gaps relating to emerging AI technologies, businesses with an edge on the competition are working with trusted strategic partners to realize the potential of generative AI in their fields. Thankfully, Zendesk AI makes artificial intelligence simple, easy to understand, and easy to implement. No need for crazy coding or training.
Resources for Zendesk Customers
We’ve covered a lot today, and I know it can sometimes feel a little overwhelming. So, I wanted to take a moment to share some amazing resources we have available to you as a Zendesk customer. Every week, our scaled success team here at Zendesk hosts our Customer Success Live, a weekly webinar in a small group setting to share best practices and address your questions about Zendesk. Additionally, we also offer our Customer Success On-Demand, which is a curated video compilation of expert insights and actionable guidance designed to embolden your path to success, just like this one.
We also have a community page that empowers you to interact with fellow Zendesk customers and employees. This forum is a great place to network and learn from others about the power of Zendesk. Finally, we also offer professional services here at Zendesk. This is a paid service in an effective combination of broad customer service expertise and deep product knowledge to help you deliver a differentiated customer experience. If you’re looking for more of a hands-on approach for your AI journey with Zendesk, contact your account executive to learn more about the different service offerings we have available.
FAQ
**Q: What is AI?**
A: AI stands for artificial intelligence, which is the simulation of human intelligence processes by machines, especially computer systems.
**Q: How can AI help my business?**
A: AI can help your business in many ways, including boosting agent productivity, delivering more personalized experiences, making more data-driven decisions, and automating repetitive tasks.
**Q: What are chatbots?**
A: Chatbots are an automated conversational customer support fueled by AI to help support simple tasks, create better experiences for your customers, increase your ticket deflection rate, and work alongside your agents to give them a helping hand.
**Q: How can I prepare for AI?**
A: To prepare for AI, you should define your AI goals, understand the significance of AI for your business, and work with trusted vendors like Zendesk to implement artificial intelligence into your customer or employee experience without risking violations of data privacy.
**Q: What resources does Zendesk offer for customers?**
A: Zendesk offers many resources for customers, including Customer Success Live, Customer Success On-Demand, a community page, and professional services.