How Amazon’s Digital Day Will Impact Customer Service

This Friday, Dec. 29, marks the second annual Amazon Digital Day. A close cousin to the retail giant’s Prime Day, this retail holiday gives shoppers the best deals on products like e-books, video games, DVDs, apps, and more.

This one-day-only event will likely bring in more sales than normal, which means brands whose products are included in this event should expect a greater demand for customer service following Digital Day. Between the end of the holiday season and Digital Day, customer service departments and call centers will be flooded with more product returns and customer care questions than usual. The increased traffic on a brand’s customer service hotlines can be a burden to customer care teams and frustrating to impatient customers. Artificial intelligence (AI), predictive analytics, chatbots, and self-service downloadable customer service materials can help brands handle this increase in customer service questions.

Tech Tools to Help Brands Handle Increased Customer Requests

There are a number of online self-service resources that can help brands deal with the customer service demand on a regular basis and when there's an influx of customer needs. The two main programs that power all of these tools are AI and self-discovery methods.

AI tools such as chatbots and machine learning can help by deflecting more customer service calls and allowing customer care agents to more quickly and accurately handle complex customer questions. By communicating with customers through their preferred channels, such as SMS messaging and social media, chatbots are able to assist customers with their service questions, drastically reducing the need to call into a customer service hotline. These helpful bots can do anything from helping customers get started with their product, answering product set-up questions, checking on order statuses and more. One of the reasons chatbots have become so popular is that they're able to give customers immediate responses in natural language, as opposed to waiting on hold on the phone to get an answer.

If live agents are needed to step in, AI technology is also being used as a “footprint” to help quickly bring the agent up to speed with all the information the customer has already provided, eliminating the need for the customer to start their explanations all over again.

Customers can also experience self-discovery tools such as adaptive FAQs, videos, interactive guides and videos to find answers quickly during their self-service journeys. The DIY approach is a less-adversarial option for both customers and brands, allowing customers to troubleshoot their own problems and quickly find answers to their questions without having to interact with a service agent or a bot. And since customers are already used to seeking their own information via search engines, they’re extremely familiar with the notion of online self-support.

How These Tools Make a Difference

The use of these tools in a customer service strategy can reduce the burden placed on call centers and create a more efficient system for answering customer queries. Not only does implementing chatbots and other AI tools lessen the stress put on customer care centers, but it can save brands money, too. By offloading customer calls to chatbots, brands can save between $1 to $5 per customer, per minute spent on the customer service hotline. The more calls brands can deflect using these tools, the more money and time they'll be able to save. These savings, especially during holiday season, can add up to millions.

AI tools make a difference to customers, too. In a recent survey of more than 2,500 consumers across the U.S., 61.5 percent of those polled said they would prefer to have their customer service questions resolved via automated response through self-service channels. This shows that there's a real demand for this type of customer service with consumers. Brands that use these devices may also see higher customer experience scores. Better customer experiences mean more repeat customers and higher brand loyalty.

Why Brands Should Care

From Black Friday to Cyber Monday to Prime Day and now Digital Day, there will always be an excuse for brands to boost sales. Customer service centers need to be prepared to handle the increased customer service traffic. Using AI and other tools, brands can manage their service requests better, improve efficiency, save money and increase customer satisfaction.

James Ramey is CEO of DeviceBits, a software company that services clients through a predictive and personalized understanding of interactive tutorials, adaptive FAQs, interactive guides and videos designed to for self-serving consumers.