How to make your agents more efficient with omnichannel support

AI is the answer

Yes, customer-facing AI is one way to make sure no questions are missed across channels but that’s just the first line of defense for your support operations. For larger, more pressing concerns, your team has to be just as equipped as self-service options for customers. This means equipping your team with AI Agent Assist to make them exponentially efficient in handling queries across channels.

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Step 1: Understand the omnichannel ecosystem

The first step is akin to mapping the terrain before a journey. Omnichannel support is not merely about being present on multiple platforms; it's about creating a cohesive, seamless customer experience. Each channel, be it email, social media, or live chat, should feel like a continuation of the other, not a standalone silo. Agents need to grasp this interconnectedness to navigate the ecosystem effectively.

This also means familiarizing with all the platforms where support is available and being able to know the ins and outs for easier and faster navigation.

Step 2: Integrate AI Agent Assist

Introducing AI Agent Assist into your support strategy is like equipping your team with a high-powered navigation system. This tool doesn't just provide answers; it offers context, ensuring agents understand the 'why' behind each query. It's about enhancing the human element of customer support, empowering agents to deliver more personalized, informed responses.

With Threado AI, you can offer omnichannel support by installing the bot as a chat widget within your product, embedding the chatbot on your website, and installing it on Slack and Discord. Also, Threado AI is the only customer support tool that provides assistance within Slack channels so your agents can get answers where they are most comfortable. AI Agent Assist’s Chrome extension sits on top of your browser and can be used with all ticketing/help desk tools like Zendesk, Freshdesk, Intercom, etc., to summarize tickets, auto-suggest responses based on customer sentiment, tone, and voice, and rephrase for better personalization.

Step 3: Centralize customer data

Imagine trying to solve a puzzle with pieces scattered across different rooms. That's the challenge agents face without centralized customer data. With AI analytics, you can aggregate information across channels and gain a holistic view of the customer's journey. This complete picture ensures that every interaction is informed and relevant, eliminating the need for customers to repeat themselves.

With data that’s easily accessible and with intelligent bots like Threado AI, you can rely on the bot to give context based on past conversations through support tickets and even community conversations like those on Slack channels. Being able to have instant context saves time in understanding the context all the time and resolving queries much faster.

Step 4: Leverage real-time assistance

With AI Agent Assist, agents have a dynamic resource at their fingertips, offering real-time data retrieval and suggestions. This immediate access to information drastically cuts down on response times and enhances decision-making. Whether it's a complex technical query or a simple product question, AI ensures that the right information is always within reach.

The most efficient (and best) way to respond to customer concerns is by leveraging both AI and human agents to craft responses that resolve queries with as little back-and-forth as possible. Agents can leverage AI Agent Assist tools like Threado AI to get auto-suggestions for responses and edit them to give a touch of personalization.

Step 5: Ensure consistency across channels

Ensuring consistency across channels in omnichannel support is akin to conducting a symphony orchestra where each musician plays a different instrument, yet all contribute to a single, harmonious melody. In the context of customer support, this harmony is achieved when customers receive a uniform level of service quality, regardless of the channel they choose to engage with. Let's delve deeper into how AI Agent Assist facilitates this consistency, making every customer interaction a note in the symphony of exceptional service.

Step 6: Engage in predictive assistance

Predictive assistance is about staying one step ahead. AI analyzes ongoing interactions and historical data to forecast customer needs and suggest next steps. This proactive approach transforms the support experience, allowing agents to address concerns even before they are articulated, leading to delightful customer interactions.

Step 7: Continuous learning and improvement

The landscape of customer support is ever-evolving, and so should the skills and knowledge of your support team. AI Agent Assist identifies trends, pinpoints knowledge gaps, and offers personalized training recommendations. This commitment to continuous improvement ensures that your team not only keeps pace with industry standards but sets them.

Efficiency is about awareness

There are measures you can take to improve how your team becomes more efficient to handle omnichannel support but nothing can really happen unless there’s both willingness to adapt to new AI technologies and awareness towards how to work with these tools as well as how is the space changing. Agents have to be proactive in terms of looking out for customer concerns across channels and more importantly, use AI Agent Assist tools to their advantage. This is the only true way to become extremely efficient which will translate to better support coverage and better support altogether.