Two weeks ago, Klarna released impressive numbers claiming their AI bot could do the work of 700 agents. According to the company, their bot was built internally based on OpenAI LLMs and uses customers' information to provide answers to their questions. At a high level it seems the bot works like this: Klarna’s knowledge base answers most generic questions. Predefined "routines" use step-by-step processes and guidelines to answer questions like refunds, returns, invoices, or requests to talk to a human. While these impressive numbers should be mitigated to some extent (there is a bit of mar ..read more

The cost and quality of customer service are a constant balancing act. Some companies over-index on quality to make support a real differentiator. Others cut costs at the expense of quality. While companies may have different reasons for focusing on the cost-quality balance, it’s a critical goal for them all. With the advent of support technology over the last 20 years, companies have invested in a new set of tools to get a little more quality for a little less cost. Today, most companies have at least an online help center and a ticketing system. Some have already gone further and deployed s ..read more

It can be hard scaling customer support to stay on top of a never-ending ticket queue. Getting too far behind can impact your customer AND employee satisfaction leading to attrition and turnover. You could reshuffle some shifts and add more articles to your help center, but that will only get you so far. You’re better off finding ways to serve your customers at scale with empathy and efficiency. The best way to scale your team is to offer guided self-serve support that enables customers to solve more of the issues they create tickets for. Here’s how Stonly can help. For more on scaling your s ..read more

90% of customers will use self-serve support when it's available. And when done well, there's no better way to improve customer satisfaction while saving time and cost. Most support leaders know there are big self-serve opportunities, but get exhausted just thinking about it. That’s because the conventional wisdom about “improving self-serve” is completely wrong. Conventional wisdom states that, in order to drive more self-serve, you need to: increase coverage so your help center will answer every possible question overhaul your entire knowledge base to make it more customer friendly program ..read more

Stonly caught up with Arun Serikar, Vice President of Digital HR at Schneider Electric, to discuss his revolutionary approach to driving employee adoption at scale. For more digital adoption strategies, download Stonly's Digital Adoption Champion Playbook. What's top of mind over the next few years as you consider your digital adoption strategy? The top three things I continue to work on are our employee experience, data interpretation, and streamlining processes and applications. Enhancing the employee experience Certainly, the primary goal in regard to employee experience is to enable our e ..read more

Customer support leaders at online marketplaces arguably have one of the most difficult roles. They’re expected to maintain trust with buyers, make sellers successful, and improve agent productivity. Since it only takes two negative experiences for 80% of customers to consider switching to a competitor, the stakes have never been higher for marketplaces to offer memorable experiences that keep buyers coming back and new sellers signing up.* So how do you continue offering excellent support quality while resolving mission-critical issues that frustrate your agents and customers? We’ve identifi ..read more

Your first 90 days in a new organization set the tone for your tenure. Over 50% of leaders fail within 18 months of taking on a new role.* This makes your first few weeks a crucial time to listen, evaluate, and set the right foundation for success. We compiled advice from three support leaders on what you should do to make the most impact in your first 90 days. Download the full checklist >>Get to know your team Eric Broulette of Hotel Engine said: “Coming in as a new leader, there was likely a level of skepticism from people on the team. Not because they don't trust the judgment of the ..read more

If you had to pick a support channel for your VIP customers, which one would come to mind first? In today’s modern world, your most premium channel should be self-serve support. In years past, companies often viewed self-serve support primarily as a way to save money and support customers more efficiently. The default thinking was that only premium customers—your highest spenders—required a higher-touch customer experience. In some cases, there are good reasons to give VIP customers a high-touch experience (assuming they want one). And great self-serve support will save you time and money. Bu ..read more

A successful relationship between product and support is like a good marriage. From good communication to shared empathy, when support effectively collaborates with product, it unlocks an extraordinary customer experience. As a support leader, you aren’t responsible for developing the roadmap. However, you can improve your product experience by bringing critical customer feedback to light. Hear from industry experts and support leaders on their strategies to drive collaboration between product and support. Watch the webinar. How can you improve your relationship with product? What should you ..read more

Help centers are a common self-serve support channel, but are they still effective? Customer bases are broader than ever, and their products are getting more complex, which means their use cases are getting more diverse. But still, customers expect their help center articles to provide immediate, personalized resolutions. If submitting a ticket feels easier, that’s what customers will do. If your top help center articles aren’t quickly guiding customers to the right resolution for their situation, they’re probably driving more ticket volume than they should be. Ineffective help center article ..read more