By Vered Shani. 

One of the most valuable perks of attending industry events is gaining insight into the business strategies of similar companies. Especially when it comes to how they plan on leveraging this year’s biggest trend: AI in customer service.

November’s UK Engage Summit really delivered, with high-profile brands in attendance including Amazon, Vodaphone, Ralph Lauren and Ikea, as well as powerful, tech-savvy speakers, allowing attendees to get a feel for what 2024 has to offer.

 Here are the top takeaways: 

1. Even progressive brands struggle to take their chatbot to the next level with AI

In 2023, every brand knows that they can connect their chatbot to a live agent for those tricky or complex conversations that require a human touch. Yet, many have not done so, even when AI makes bot-human routing even smarter with the ability to automatically identify intents, easily build AI bot flows that understands conversational context, and more.

This means that instead of using AI to take the next leap into automation and save big on operational costs, brands are still stuck at building a standard chatbot – majorly missing out on the benefits of using AI to make their lives radically more efficient.

CommBox luckily has a lot of experience helping brands quickly and simply harness the power of AI innovation to create that competitive edge with a ‘land and expand approach’ that get brands started quickly, so they can experience a ROI in record time.

2. WhatApp Business has soared in popularity – and everyone wants in

There is definitely a shift from traditional emails, phone calls, and even social media platforms to the realm of messaging applications. Recent statistics on messaging app usage reveal that WhatsApp boasts of a user base close to…drumroll… 3 billion worldwide. That’s why WhatsApp Business is now a primary focus for many leading brands – so much so that only customer service solutions that provide a WhatsApp Business API are making the customer service solution shortlist in 2024.

At CommBox, we are grateful to already be official WhatsApp Meta Partners, allowing brands to seamlessly connect to and offer WhatsApp Business as a digital channel,  including the ability to launch WhatsApp campaigns. CommBox is the only 1-phone number WhatsApp solution, so brands can use a single phone number for all services, across all departments. Easily send and receive files, get customer current location, validate customer identity, send invoices, receive secure payments are just a few of the options your brand will have using WhatsApp Business for customer service.

3. Omnichannel experience is the dream, but for many not a reality

While many solutions boast of an all-in-one, one-stop-shop CX platform , when push comes to shove many don’t deliver that experience to brands. Even something as simple as connecting AI chatbots to human agents for routing or your CRM for unified workflows, has not yet become a reality. Difficulty implementation, unintuitive UI and workspaces, and even a lack of technical capabilities are some of the top reasons brands list for why they have not really achieved an omnichannel experience.

Thankfully, there are a few CX solutions out there that offer a true, easy-to-use and seamless omnichannel experience with a unified inbox, and CommBox is one of them. See how easy it is to launch an AI bot that connects to digital channels, your internal business solutions, and have a powerful agent workspace.

4. High-security industries are still finding ways to leverage AI

Yes, security teams are usually the wet blanket that extinguishes AI in all its glory. But, not so fast – there are already incredibly impactful and secure ways high-security brands are using AI in customer service to not only reap the typical benefits of efficiency, but also strengthen security and compliance.

The most primary example is a curated agent assistance – which means an AI toll that enhances agent productivity by automating repetitive tasks and helping agents form responses that are in line with their brand policies. The security level comes in when solutions allow their agent assistants to be tamed – not open to the wild world of AI- but rather provide agents with responses from specific knowledge sources. Then, brands can benefit from the efficiency of AI while ensuring the AI response is limited to approved information.

CommBox’s AI Agent Assist can be set to exclusively rely on pre-existing help content and brand knowledge to ensure accurate responses. This approach grants brands significant control over the information their AI can provide to agents. While some other GPT bots draw from untamed, extensive web-based data, our strategy of empowering brands to set the bot’s information sources greatly enhances security, predictability and trustworthiness. If a user poses a question not covered in your help center, Era AI will transparently admit it doesn’t have the answer—a crucial feature that distinguishes it from other bots.

5. Businesses biggest deterrent with AI is not knowing where to start

In the dynamic world of customer service and support, everyone’s buzzing about AI’s potential, but many find it a daunting task. Overcoming the hesitation is key to unlocking AI’s magic and saving on operational costs.

Some first steps:

• Identify your pain points – usually the most repetitive task or inquiry coming into your customer service center
• Launch an instant AI bot based on the relevant support or help center content to automate the resolution of these common tasks and inquiries (just upload the URL into the knowledge base!)
• Open communication channels between AI systems and human agents, routing complex queries to human agents and always keeping them in the loop, to create a collaborative environment where AI complements human capabilities.
• Connect to your internal business systems, like your CRM, to use client data and give customers a personalized experience.
• Choose a solution that can easily take your brand through all these steps.