IT and HR teams grappling with the balance of productivity and cost efficiency can harness Zendesk's AI-powered employee experience solutions for enhanced capabilities and exceptional employee experiences. In our last community event, we explored these innovations, including Conversational Bots in Slack and an upcoming AI feature for IT and HR teams, demonstrating how organizations can leverage these tools for time-saving benefits. Practical use cases were discussed, and attendee questions were addressed, offering valuable insights and clarifications.
Video Recording
Top Questions from the Q&A
Q1: What are some best practices for different roles and resources to get the best out of AI and Bots
As an admin, trust the data provided by enriched tickets and bot insights to understand your customers' needs better. Allow a few weeks for intelligent triage and pre-trained intents to highlight priority requests. Listen to your agents' feedback about repetitive requests; these are prime opportunities for automation. Use metrics such as assignment time, reassignments, and agent replies to identify efficiency opportunities.
For agents, the quality of data can be influenced by actions such as applying macros only when relevant. This will help refine the model. If you need to read the macro content, use the preview button instead of applying and then deleting the text.
Remember, improving customer experience is an iterative process. You won't solve every request immediately, but new insights will emerge over time. Regularly review and adjust your approach, using data to guide your decisions.
Q2: What are change management tips for helping employees and customers adapt to AI technology?
For agents, we recommend utilizing the training resources provided and then experimenting with the tool. While there might be a slight dip in productivity initially, mastery of the tool will lead to significant improvements.
Implementing AI workflow changes is an iterative process. Use our tools and reports to adjust workflows, measure the effectiveness of changes, and tweak as necessary. If you're satisfied with the results from a deflection workflow or routing changes, consider moving on to the next set of intents or workflows.
Lastly, embrace user feedback. Agents can inform you about repetitive topics they're tired of addressing, and customers can provide valuable feedback through CSAT or directly to your team. Use this feedback to gauge your level of AI integration and assess how comfortable users are with bot responses and deflections.
Q3: What is the most common roadblock to implementing AI and bots reported?
Recent research involving 1,000 senior IT leaders globally found that 58% are concerned about the rapid evolution of the AI landscape, 57% identify talent gaps, and 60% struggle with collecting and labeling high-quality data for training automation models.
To address these issues, we utilize pre-trained models enriched with millions of examples. Our intelligent triage feature, activated with a single click, simplifies the process. However, there are still challenges to overcome, such as adapting your business logic for increased automation and setting up your business rules accurately to leverage AI metadata. We are also committed to enhancing our reporting to offer more transparency into AI.
Q4: Any advice on how I can use Zendesk AI and bots to make my agents more efficient so they can spend less time on easy tasks and more time on challenging ones
So, our advanced bots can help you handle simple stuff like password resets or questions about warranty policies. They can even collect important details from your customers for you.
When you're dealing with tickets, we've got some tools that can help. We use OpenAI tools that can sum up the conversation in a ticket, which can make it easier for you to respond. We also have these suggested macros that can guide you to the right answers quickly.
We're also working on a feature that shows you similar tickets. This could help you find solutions from past tickets that are similar to the one you're currently looking at.
Resources
About intelligent triage and Intelligence in the context panel
Q5: Can Zendesk AI generate KB article suggestions by analyzing resolved tickets and offer potential troubleshooting guides informed by prior resolutions?
As part of our Guide Enterprise offering, content cues are available already. This compares incoming tickets against your existing knowledge base content and will offer suggestions for articles to create where you may have gaps.
Resources
Reviewing suggested support topics in Content Cues
Reviewing articles in Content Cues
Q6: What if our internal knowledge base is located in a separate platform? Can we reference content outside of Zendesk articles?
There is a federated search capability in Zendesk. This is not linked to AI yet, but it is in our future plans.
Resources:
About Zendesk Federated Search
Q7: Is Zendesk working on implementing more features in the 'Ask for details' module? Right now, it seems limited to text and drop-down fields, and a very common use case is asking the end user for something like a number.
Bot admins have the ability to create custom fields to collect customer information as a bot step. These include numbers as well. This information can then be used to make an API call to an internal or third-party system to surface relevant information.
Resources:
Understanding answer step types
Q8: Can Zendesk AI be used in triggers and automation?
Yes, Zendesk AI can be used in triggers and automation. The Intelligent Triage feature can add enrichments that can be used for routing, workflows, and SLAs. Advanced AI also allows for auto-replies or internal notes to be posted on tickets. Auto replies can be used for deflection or to request more information from the user. Internal notes can alert internal parties based on the trigger's criteria, such as providing a heads-up to offer an exceptional experience to a VIP customer with a negative sentiment.
Q9: Any updates on when these AI features will be certified as HIPAA compliant?
Yes! Zendesk’s Advanced AI add-on is now available for use under the Zendesk BAA by HIPAA-enabled accounts. Zendesk customers can meet their HIPAA obligations while using Zendesk’s newest AI features included in the Advanced AI add-on. Please note that the Generative AI functionality, part of our partnership with OpenAI, is not yet included in the HIPAA-enabled offering.
Presentation Material:
Future Events & Opportunities