Why AI agents mark a massive change in CX

Ask any CX leader, and they’ll tell you that ticket volumes keep rising and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. While older chatbots played a valuable role in stemming this growth in support requests, it’s clear that they’re running up against their limitations.

Because they operate under a limited set of predetermined rules, traditional chatbots often struggle when presented with a question outside of those narrow parameters. That means human agents have to take over, which places more strain on CX teams’ budgets.

When you add growing customer demands for more personalized and streamlined experiences, it’s clear that something has to give. Enter AI agents, the next generation of AI-powered bots that will help CX teams scale wisely while delighting customers.

What are AI agents, and what can they do?

AI agents are autonomous bots that are far more powerful than traditional chatbots. Zendesk AI agents are trained on high-quality CX data sets consisting of billions of interactions, so they can automatically resolve a wider range of customer issues quickly and artfully, which frees human agents to focus on more high-value work, which will be less monotonous and more rewarding.

That high-value work taps into the strengths of human agents: the ability to convey empathy to customers, build lasting relationships, and resolve issues in creative and innovative ways.

Zendesk AI agents are trained on high-quality CX data sets consisting of billions of interactions, so they can automatically resolve a wider range of customer issues quickly and artfully.

Meanwhile, AI agents are highly customizable—their personalities can be tailored to fit your brand, and they can make convincing small talk, offering personalized responses that build deep connections with your customers. You’ll also be able to easily track AI agent performance, tracking metrics such as fully automated resolutions and customer engagement levels. You’ll have full visibility into how your AI agents are performing so you can get in front of any issues that could result in churn or negative sentiment. That gives you the opportunity to make updates to source content, refine automated workflows, or even follow up with customers to optimize your AI agent’s performance.

When you put AI agents—which are easy to set up, especially when compared to traditional chatbots—on the front lines of your CX, you’ll see immediate results:

Manage increasing volumes at scale. With customer interactions expected to continue skyrocketing, AI agents are the key to managing this challenge effectively. Fortunately, setting up Zendesk AI agents and achieving powerful results requires minimal effort for CX organizations.

To get started, simply connect your AI agent to your knowledge base and begin tackling your customers’ top requests on day one. It’s easy and requires no training.

For those situations that require a more tailored approach, Zendesk’s conversation flows make it easy to customize and control how your AI agent interacts with customers. They can also be configured to take on more advanced tasks autonomously, like returns or exchanges, by easily connecting to your backend systems. That ensures your AI agent can seamlessly resolve customer issues from start to finish, regardless of the complexity.

Significantly reduce CX costs. AI agents can autonomously resolve up to 80 percent of customer requests. That means you can scale easily without adding headcount to your operations.

Drive revenue. AI agents are skilled sellers—they can drive upselling, cross-selling, and even recommend new product lines to your customers. They reduce support costs while turning your support center into a revenue-generating operation.

Boost customer satisfaction. Watch your CSAT score climb as AI agents resolve customer issues ever-more quickly. Because they learn from every interaction and are pre-trained to automatically detect what customers want (and their sentiment), AI agents deliver the right response every time.

AI agents are skilled sellers—they can drive upselling, cross-selling, and even recommend new product lines to your customers.

Drive personalization. AI agents can integrate with your core business systems, which means they can access a wealth of customer data—past interactions, purchase history, and preferences and behaviors. They know your business, and they understand your customers, which means AI agents can personalize every interaction.

Empower your human agents. AI agents make your human agents more efficient—they know when to hand off interactions to human agents as well as which one would be best suited for the issue, and they pass along all details to deliver a seamless experience. That empowers your agents to take action and resolve issues faster.

How to get started with AI agents

The only way AI agents can be fully integrated into the front lines of your operation is to rely on a solution that is purpose-built for the customer experience. Zendesk AI agents work seamlessly right out of the box and provide immediate ROI—and crucially, they’ll help your business build stronger human relationships.