AI chatbots have popped up everywhere in a short time: on websites, in apps and in customer service. But what exactly is an AI chatbot, how does it work, and is it the right choice for your customer service?

What is an AI chatbot?

An AI chatbot is software that automatically holds conversations in natural language. Where older chatbots used fixed decision trees (“choose 1, 2 or 3”), modern AI chatbots use language models that understand text and formulate answers themselves.

How does it work?

Broadly speaking, an AI chatbot for customer service works like this:

  1. The customer asks a question in everyday language.
  2. The language model interprets the question and determines what the customer wants to know.
  3. The chatbot looks up relevant information, for example in a knowledge base, FAQ or product catalogue.
  4. The model formulates an answer based on that information.

The quality of the answers depends heavily on the information the chatbot has access to. Without a good, up-to-date knowledge base, a chatbot can give incomplete or even incorrect answers.

The advantages

  • Always available, also outside office hours.
  • Fast answers to simple, frequently asked questions.
  • Scalable for large numbers of similar questions.

The limitations

  • Complex or unusual questions: a chatbot gets stuck when a situation does not fit the information.
  • Emotion and empathy: a customer who is angry or disappointed wants to feel heard by a person.
  • Errors: language models can give answers that sound convincing but are wrong.
  • Frustration: customers who cannot reach a person drop out.

The alternative: AI that supports your team

There is another way to use AI: not as a replacement for your agents, but as their assistant. That is how we work at Mijnsupportdesk. An internal AI assistant searches the knowledge base, summarises information and suggests an answer. A trained agent reviews that suggestion, makes it personal and holds the conversation.

That way you benefit from the speed and consistency of AI, without your customer getting stuck in a bot. Read more about our AI-assisted customer service.