Giving You Better Customer Service with AI

3 Key Trends in Customer Services in 2019

Without doubt, self-service – where customers find their own solutions – is the fastest growing customer service trend in 2019. Every company that wants to stay ahead of the curve has to adjust how it supports its customers. And to do that, you have to understand the changing trends and preferences and the steps and solutions required to offer the best possible service.

1. Changing Preferences

AI is shifting customer services away from personalized towards predictive. Moreover, 79% of customers would rather use self-service than a human-assisted support channel.

According to the technology market researchers TSIA, self-service ranks second in how customers’ want to receive product support, with Google searches taking top spot. The TSIA Support Services Benchmark shows user preferences for self-service grew from 61% in 2017 to 80% in 2018. According to research by Forrester, 79% of customers would rather use self-service than a human-assisted support channel. And Gartner predicts that 85% of consumer interactions will be non-human by 2020.

2. Higher Requirements

Most customers want quick answers or solutions. They’re also growing more tech-savvy – they don’t want to make a phone call to get an answer and instead expect quick and easy self-service resources such as FAQs and knowledge bases like support communities and forums. Fast response times top customer expectations.

Gone are the days of call centers or filing a ticket. Customers now want a chatbot that can navigate them towards their own solution, delivering instant service and instant satisfaction.

3. Big Data & AI

Every customer-centric company should provide real-time support solutions that make it extremely easy for customers to get quick answers. That means increasing investment in big data- and AI-driven solutions that can interact smoothly with customers and predict their needs.

Customers expect quick fixes and a fluid experience on vendor websites, so it makes sense to invest in platforms that deliver a seamless experience. The aim is to deflect as many tickets as possible by offering self-service solutions.

Helping You Help Yourself

We value your time and we know you expect a fast response. That’s why we’re always refining our self-service solutions based on data.

Huawei Enterprise technical support is a platform for customers to quickly solve issues about enterprise products. The self-service platform consists of iKnow and Support Community.

iKnow is an intelligent chat bot that uses Huawei Enterprise product knowledge combined with algorithms and machine learning to provide the best answers to customer queries. It suggests links based on a written description of an issue and identifies intention based on dialogue and follow-up questions, collating all enterprise product knowledge to provide customers with precise solutions. The more customers interact with it, the more it grows in intelligence and solution efficacy.

It serves as a one-stop shop covering all enterprise services, including spare parts replacement, channel service policies, software licenses, trainings and certification, pre-sales solutions, and more.

Intelligent chatbots such as iKnow are fast, useful and efficient, which is exactly what customers want.

Support Community provides a shared and interactive platform for Huawei partners, customers and technology enthusiasts where they can communicate, post about complex issues, share technical resources and documentation and improve their professional knowledge. Here you can find hot posts, classic cases, expert Q&A sessions, documentation, technical activities and more.

In the self-service environment, people still like to help each other. Our Support Community provides an ideal platform to do that. They can connect with other users who share the same interests, exchange ideas and technical knowledge, ask questions, and select the best solutions from multiple answers.

Online/Offline: Our smart online support and offline support (TAC) are strongly connected to provide a seamless customer service experience. For example, most of our engineers are also active on Support Community where they answer questions, share technical insights, and exchange ideas with other experts and technology enthusiasts. They also train in the iKnow tool to become better and better at providing accurate answers.

What Does That Mean for You?

1. Fast response: Our Support Community has a 3-hour response time and a guaranteed 48 hours resolution time for issues posted in our forum.
2. Engineer access: Queries on the forum are handled by Huawei engineers and experts, so you’re guaranteed to get the best possible answer. 
3. Saving money: Our self-service solutions are free to use.

Main Features

For us, investing in AI and improving the performance of iKnow means that we’re actually investing in our customers. We know how important it is for them to reach their answers as soon as possible, which is why the iKnow is ideal to solve easier problems. For more complex technical issues, our customers can visit the Support Community to get in touch with a Huawei expert or contact the Technical Assistance Center for critical problems.

Round-the-clock services via conversational bots that act like human agents and are able to respond to specific customer needs have arrived. 2019 is the year when conversational bots, predictive analytics, and self-service will grow at an extremely fast pace in the business ecosystem. And we’ve already deployed our AI-powered self-service chatbot to serve you.

Make sure you have a look around the Huawei Enterprise Forum to see what’s being discussed, how problems are solved, and also to interact with the community.

Disclaimer: Any views and/or opinions expressed in this post by individual authors or contributors are their personal views and/or opinions and do not necessarily reflect the views and/or opinions of Huawei Technologies.