How to empower digital email processing with Generative AI: 5 practicle examples
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Omnichannel customer service is becoming increasingly important. McKinsey reports that about three-quarters of customers use multiple channels to interact with a brand. Depending on the situation and their needs, customers prefer different channels. Among these, email stands out as one of the most important. According to Ultimate’s Trend Survey for 2024, email is experiencing the fastest growth among channels reported by CX leaders, indicating that the volume of email requests will only continue to rise.
For customer service teams handling hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of emails every day, the challenges are familiar. Ensuring that emails reach the right person and that customers receive a timely response without efficiency or revenue losses can be daunting.
Fortunately, with Generative AI, managing customer emails has never been easier. Whether it’s routing emails or automating responses, the latest advances offer significant business opportunities. Let’s explore a few specific examples.
Email classification and routing trends
Previously, the widely used NLP approach primarily relied on keyword extraction to classify emails based on keywords in the body or subject. However, it’s often challenging to determine whether an email mentioning payments multiple times should be addressed by someone handling transaction issues, returns, or coupon inquiries. Consequently, such emails often end up being manually routed. Combining this NLP approach with Generative AI can sometimes enhance efficiency and is advisable. However, the Generative AI alone offers a wide range of additional benefits that can significantly transform your customer service operations.
1) The knowledge base approach
Utilizing both large and small language models enables the classification and routing of requests based on context. This means that an email about payments isn’t simply routed based on keywords but rather on the knowledge base available within your company. The AI leverages this information, contextualizes it to resolve the issue, and routes the email based on the necessary next steps, such as complaint processing. With an astonishing 98% accuracy rate, the email is then directed to the inbox of the person responsible for that area, complete with a label indicating the required action. Additionally, the AI can prioritize responses based on the urgency sentiment conveyed in the message.
2) Preprocessing and response automation
By making efficient use of the available knowledge base, Generative AI can help prepare or fully automate human-like responses, saving your teams significant time. In some scenarios, the prepared response may be sufficient for your agent and only require additional human oversight, such as insurance claims. Over time, however, you can identify processes that are ripe for full automation. This means that the Generative AI-powered email processing tool will accurately classify the request and then send a relevant response without any human intervention.
3) API hooks
In addition, when customers authenticate themselves within the incoming email, for example, based on order numbers, booking numbers, phone numbers, or IDs, additional information can be automatically retrieved from the system via connected APIs.
With such authentication, the Generative AI-powered system can also deliver more personalized and relevant responses, including specific details such as delivery delays or claim status.
Born Digital’s Digital Email Processing tool also automatically prompts for additional authentication if it wasn’t completed correctly the first time. This approach results in significant time savings for agents and a noticeable increase in productivity and response time, as the majority of these requests can be fully automated. In our experience, more than 60% of automated requests can be successfully achieved.
4) Customer insight analytics
In addition to the perks mentioned above, Generative AI also offers significant advantages for uncovering customer insights. Beyond digital email processing, it allows you to analyze the sentiment of emails and prioritize responses accordingly. Furthermore, you gain insights into which topics are most frequently addressed, enabling you to understand what your teams need to deal with and which agents are most overwhelmed. The GenAI-powered analytics also reveal new topics that you weren’t aware of before, enabling you to allocate team resources efficiently. By optimizing team performances, redistributing responsibilities, and enhancing your digital email processing and routing, you can power up your customer service operations.
5) Data extraction from email attachments
Emails often come with attachments like invoices, insurance claims, or ID pictures. Born Digital Email Processing efficiently extracts data from these attachments in various formats. This functionality enables automation tools to seamlessly incorporate attachment information into tasks such as updating internal accounting systems. Moreover, it supports preprocessing email responses for human agents. Additionally, the system can also analyze attachment content for suspicious patterns or inconsistencies, aiding in fraud detection efforts within customer service operations. This multifaceted capability not only streamlines workflows but also enhances security measures, ensuring a more efficient and secure customer service experience.
Business results
In summary, integrating Generative AI into customer service operations presents numerous advantages. Businesses can anticipate cost savings through automation, quicker response times to customer inquiries, and seamless provision of multilingual support. Born Digital’s Digital Email Processing tool encompasses all these features, simplifying email classification, routing, preprocessing, and attachment data extraction. By harnessing Generative AI, companies can optimize team performance, gain deeper customer insights, and bolster fraud detection efforts. We’re thrilled to assist you in navigating the implementation process and addressing any questions you may have, ensuring a smooth transition towards a more efficient and effective customer service experience.