Customer service is an important aspect of any business organization. Businesses keep looking for new ideas to improve their customer service and offer better customer experience, which has led to the advancements in AI based customer service solutions. Although, businesses have been using AI in customer support for a while; the collaboration still holds many facets that are yet to be unfolded in the future.

Following are some of the applications of AI that can be explored for enhancing customer service by businesses:

• Brand Messenger: In recent years, there has been an increased user inclination towards messaging apps. The use of messaging has extended from personal communications to user engagement with brands. This has laid out a path for businesses to incorporate chatbots to interact with new and existing customers. As some major industries (like fashion, tourism, food chains, airline, e-commerce and hotels) have adopted this feature to increase user engagement; it would be exciting to know which industries will follow the suit in future.

• Quick Resolution: Wait time for resolving simple queries is an important determinant in customer satisfaction. Customers seek quick answers to general queries and tend to trust a brand that offers faster answers and streamlined action plans for their queries. Thus, businesses can exploit the capacity of AI to multi-task and handle multiple automated queries. This will help in limiting the response time and generating accurate resolutions.

• Customized User Experience: In addition to making self-service user interfaces more intuitive, AI can help in anticipating customer needs based on previous chat history, contexts and user preferences. AI integrated systems can capture a large amount of data for identifying customer issues, defining customer behavior, determining frequent decisions, prompting with proactive alert messages, suggesting personalized offers and discounts, etc. Such intelligent assistance and pre-emptive recommendations will help companies in offering a quality rich customer service.

• AI Controlled Multiple Support Channels: In addition to providing direct assistance to the customers, AI can be used to control multiple channels of customer support. For example, in case a telecommunications agent is unable to answer a query, AI can determine the issue and direct the customer towards dedicated support channel.

Undoubtedly, these applications support the strengthening of collaboration between AI & Customer Support. However, as the AI systems rely on collecting extensive user data for working efficiently, this gives rise to privacy concerns. The data collecting system can be compromised resulting in a data breach. Thus, business organizations need to pay due attention to data security policies before implementing AI supported customer service systems.

For more information about use of AI in customer service, call Centex Technologies at (972) 375 - 9654.

As quoted by Steve Jobs, ‘Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.’ UX & UI are an integral part of a website design process that make it more responsive and user-friendly. In order to understand the future of UX & UI, it is first important to understand the terms individually.

 What Is UI?

UI or user interface is the point of contact between human and computer. It includes anything that a user interacts with in order to use an application or website like screens, touchscreens, keyboards, sounds, lights, etc.

What Is UX?

As defined by ISO 9241-210, UX or user experience is "a person's perceptions and responses that result from the use or anticipated use of a product, system or service".  It includes all the users' emotions, beliefs, preferences, perceptions, psychological responses, behaviors and accomplishments that occur before, during and after use. 

Talking in terms of business websites, UI is more focused on how a product’s surface looks and works; whereas UX is focused on a user’s journey of using your product.

Here are some future trends that you should look forward to:

Future UI Trends For 2020

• Custom-Made Graphics: Your business website should help people relate to your brand. So, making use of photos or imagery with people who are relevant to your business is a good idea. Instead of using stock photos, the future will see creation of custom-made graphics for business websites and other digital content.
• Motion Graphics & Motion Effects: With the rise of 5G, it will become easier to load complex animations. So, this will pave way for websites with a creative UI having animated texts, fonts, graphics, etc. instead of static images.
• Responsive Colors: This trend has been around for a while and is expected to be adopted by more brands. Instead of sticking to a single symbolic color, the brands tend to include an array of responsive colors to the website design. These may include a set of pre-defined colors or a dynamic color system that adapts according to the color of environment for a more symmetrical view.

Future UX Trends For 2020

• Designing For Speed: As data transfer speed and latency rate are improving significantly, UX is directly related to loading speed of your website. For 2020, the focus will be on optimizing your website for speed. Also, some good UX practices such as loaders (button that shows your webpage is loading) will become irrelevant. The only use of loaders will be in call-to-actions such as order confirmation, transferring funds, etc.
• AR & VR: AR & VR are becoming an integral part of UX design. Common examples of including AR & VR in design are apps like Snapchat, Sephora, etc. The trend is being extensively adapted to offer user convenience.
• Device Synchronization: Users tend to use a website across multiple devices like desktop, laptop, smartphone, etc. With increasing use of mobile devices, device synchronization is an important future trend for UX design.

For more information on UI & UX, contact Centex Technologies at (972) 375 - 9654.