“Will my team soon be replaced by AI?”
“Is AI really worth it for our customer service?”
“Aren’t chatbots more frustration than help?”
“How easy is it to implement the legal requirements for AI in customer service?”
Welcome to our website! If you have landed here, you have probably already encountered these questions several times. Artificial intelligence is THE trending topic in customer service, but at the same time there is a lot of confusion about what AI can do, where its limits lie and what legal requirements need to be observed.
First things first: No, AI will not replace your support agents. But it can take an incredible amount of work off their hands, automate processes, make service faster and smarter – and help customers get help faster and teams work more efficiently.
Let’s take a look at how AI is changing customer service, what technologies are available and how you can utilise the potential of AI for your company without having to completely redesign your processes.
Directly to: Chatbots & AI Agents | AI for background processes | Real-life example | Legal requirements | Implement AI
1. Why AI in customer service?
Anyone who works in support or customer experience knows this:
- Customers are becoming increasingly demanding and expect immediate responses – at all times.
- The majority of enquiries are recurring and easy to process, but are still far too often handled manually.
- Many processes are slow, inefficient and error-prone.
This is exactly where AI comes in for customer service: Artificial intelligence can solve these problems by relieving the burden on support teams, automating standardised processes and making relevant information available more quickly. Its full potential is not only realised in direct customer communication, but above all in the automation of background processes.
In short: AI is not a replacement for people in customer service – but when used correctly, it is an indispensable turbo for your customer service.
2. AI technologies in customer service
AI for direct customer contact: Chatbots & AI Agents
Chatbots are often the first point of contact with “AI-powered customer support” – and don’t always have the best reputation. But not every technology works the same:
Rule-based chatbots: Rule-based chatbots have nothing to do with artificial intelligence, work with fixed response patterns and are well suited to simple enquiries.
AI-powered chatbots: AI-supported chatbots use machine learning to react flexibly to different formulations.
Conversational AI: These advanced bots not only analyse keywords, but also contexts, understand connections and can interact more naturally with customers. → More about this
- AI Agents: Independent virtual agents not only take over communication, but also carry out processes in the background, from creating tickets or querying the order status to independently composing responses and processing the entire ticket.
Despite their mediocre reputation, AI-supported chatbots have developed enormously in some cases and can now provide astonishingly precise answers and handle processes. Modern conversational AI and AI agents draw on extensive, verified data sources and use contextual analyses to avoid misunderstandings.
However, it is not just their technology that is crucial for the successful use of chatbots: companies should also ensure that the AI has access to high-quality data and that clear escalation processes are defined – for example, for particularly complex or sensitive enquiries that are better handled by a human agent.
Chatbots with the major providers
Zendesk:
AI Agents Essentials: The classic “Help Centre Bot” offers generative AI responses and is included in all Zendesk Suite and Support plans.
AI Copilot: A suite of AI features as an add-on that supports agents with guided processes, initial response suggestions and ticket summaries.
AI Agents Advanced (formerly Ultimate): includes all the features of the Essential plan plus advanced features such as conversation flows, APIs and detailed analytics. Fully automated ticket solutions in chat and email are also possible.
Salesforce:
- Einstein GPT uses generative AI to enable personalised customer communication in real time.
- Einstein bots automate routine enquiries and make complex processes more efficient.
Freshdesk:
- Freddy AI automates self-service through context-based recommendations and smart answer suggestions.
AI for process automation: the true revolution in customer service
In our opinion, the biggest game changer of AI is not in the customer dialogue, but takes place in the background: in process automation, the AI finds and structures predefined data within the tickets, working exclusively with verifiable data and fixed rules.
What can AI achieve in the backend?
- Automatic ticket categorisation and forwarding optimises the distribution of enquiries.
- Data extraction from customer enquiries enables direct processing of relevant information.
- Error detection and predictive analyses help to identify problems at an early stage.
- Triggering of actions such as voucher creation, returns labels and much more.
An example from practice:
A company uses Zendesk and customised automation from Leafworks:
A customer wants to return goods and contacts the company via chatbot.
The AI automatically analyses and extracts relevant data from the enquiry and compares it with existing information in the backend.
If a return is legitimate based on the defined processes, a returns label can be generated in the system or by the third-party provider and included in the response.
The customer receives their individualised returns label and the ticket and the information in the backend are updated.
If the customer has further questions that cannot be resolved by the chatbot, there is the option of forwarding them to the support team.
Result
Less manual processing of standard requests
Faster response times thanks to automated processes
Relief for the support team, which can concentrate on complex cases
Legal requirements: From the GDPR to the EU AI Act
The new EU legislation on the use of artificial intelligence, the EU AI Act, sets out clear rules for customer service. The focus is particularly on transparency, data protection and ethical AI use. Companies that use AI agents or chatbots must ensure that users always recognise that they are interacting with an AI. Data protection also remains a key issue, especially when AI-supported analyses or decision-making processes are used in customer service.
→ More about the EU AI Act – and what it means for your customer service
In addition to the EU AI Act, the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) continues to be crucial for the use of AI in customer service. Companies must ensure that personal data processed by chatbots or AI agents is collected, stored and used lawfully. This applies, for example, to the automatic analysis of customer enquiries, the storage of support interactions or the forwarding of sensitive data by AI-supported systems. It is particularly important to have a clear data protection policy and to inform users transparently about the processing of their data.
To make it easier for companies to comply with GDPR requirements in customer service, Leafworks has developed a special GDPR app for Zendesk. This app helps to securely manage, anonymise or delete personal data – directly in Zendesk. This allows GDPR requirements to be implemented efficiently without the need for time-consuming adjustments to manual processes.
How to integrate AI into customer service in a meaningful way
Many companies are faced with the same questions:
- Where does AI bring the greatest measurable benefit?
- Which processes should be automated first?
- Which tools are the right ones?
The right AI strategy depends on the challenges and goals a company is pursuing in customer service. What are the pain points, where do recurring tasks paralyse support? Which enquiries occur particularly frequently and have great potential to be automated?
To derive the greatest possible benefit from AI technologies, it is advisable to have a contact person with comprehensive expertise and a pragmatic approach.
How to implement AI successfully
2. tool selection and integration: integrate suitable solutions into existing systems.
3. training and optimisation: ensure that AI processes work efficiently and are improved in the long term.
Conclusion: Use AI in a targeted manner instead of just trying it out
Artificial intelligence is no longer an experiment in customer service; it has long been part of modern day-to-day support. Companies that use AI correctly demonstrably benefit from more efficient processes, shorter response times and better customer communication. But AI is not a sure-fire success – without a well thought-out strategy, its potential will remain unutilised.
Leafworks helps companies to find the best solutions and integrate them into customer service in the long term. Let us advise you. Arrange a brief meeting with us to find out which AI strategy is right for your company.
Why Leafworks?
Leafworks specialises in helping companies find the best AI solutions for their customer service. We are the market leader and DACH partner of the year for Zendesk.
With a wealth of experience in the integration and implementation of customised customer service solutions, we not only provide advice, but also technical integration and optimisation – with the aim of not only finding (or developing) the best solution, but also implementing it quickly.
Talk to us!
Robert Cwicinski
Customer service expert
- CRM
- Automation
- Integrations
- Business Intelligence/BI
- Zendesk
- Digital Transformation
- Custom MVPs
