7 min read As your business grows, the demand for customer support is going to evolve. From merely answering frequently asked questions about products/ services, agents may have to tackle more complex queries while juggling the new, returning, and repeat customers. This is where custom AI agents come in.
In this post, we’re going to share why fast-scaling businesses should choose customer support solutions that help build custom AI agents – instead of the traditional templatized workflows.
Table of Contents
What are custom AI agents?
Custom AI agents are intelligent systems powered by technologies like AI, machine learning, and natural language processing. Compared to traditional chatbots, these agents are designed to mimic human interaction and give businesses the ability to build out support workflows that don’t follow a traditional path to resolution and may require higher engagement with a customer.
Unlike pre-built solutions, custom AI agents are tailored to meet the specific needs of a business, offering higher levels of personalization and more efficient customer interactions. Their ability to adapt to the unique processes of a business, and integrate industry-specific knowledge and company data is what makes these agents more effective.
What are the benefits of using custom AI agents in customer support?
Some of the benefits of using custom AI agents include:
- Unique customer journeys – As businesses get more control over how each query’s workflow is handled, they’re able to create unique experiences for customers. This helps turn the usual support interactions into a competitive edge that they are remembered for.
- Faster response and resolution times – With custom AI agents, businesses are able to integrate their workflows, processes, and data into support. The integrated approach helps them not just respond to queries faster, but also reach the point of resolution quickly.
- Reduced manual workload – From answering frequently asked questions to admin tasks like creating logs, inputting data into the CRM, or making new documentation, custom AI agents on Auralis AI can automate almost 70% of the company’s internal processes. This frees up the agent’s time for more complex queries and also minimizes errors.
- Response consistency – Despite defined processes, human agents may respond to queries differently based on their experience, knowledge, or even mood. Custom AI agents are built using company workflows and documentation, which enables them to standardize responses. This ensures customers receive accurate information, reduces miscommunication or confusion, and delivers a consistent brand experience.
- Improved personalization – By accessing customer data, interaction, and purchase history, custom AI agents can tailor their responses, recommendations, or solutions. Personalization combined with real-time responses creates a more engaging experience.
- Reduced costs – Custom AI agents enable businesses to scale up/ down their support operations with ease. AI agents can handle volumes of customer inquiries without the business having to invest more in staffing or setting up additional shifts.
How to build custom AI agents for customer support?
Since custom AI agents are targeted at helping the business set up more tailored support workflows, they need to be approached more methodically:
1. Define your business goals and objectives
Before you begin, identify the real reason why you need custom AI agents. Typical goals that you may want to address through custom AI agents include:
- Set up integrated business workflows
- Improve customer experience
- Boost agent productivity
- Offer proactive assistance
- Streamline customer data
- Reduce operational costs
- Offer omnichannel service
2. Run a SWOT analysis
Whether you’re using a chatbot, standard automation, or have a team of human agents handling support evaluate the current strengths and weaknesses. Here’s what a SWOT analysis can uncover:
- Strengths – Product knowledge, communication skills
- Weaknesses – Slow response times, higher resolution times, lack of consistency in responses
- Opportunities – Expanding self-service, automating queries through chatbots
- Threats – Customer drop-off/ churn, negative online reviews, increasing customer expectations
3. Choose the right AI customer support solution
Setting up effective custom AI agents requires you to do more than just create customized workflows. This is where the importance of choosing a solution that leverages machine learning, natural language processing, AI, and automation comes into play. For example, Auralis AI:
- Uses NLP to understand and interpret customer inquiries
- Leverages machine learning to help AI agents learn from interactions
- Sets up automation for back-end processes such as updating customer records
- Predicts and suggests responses using AI to personalize interactions in real-time
- Offers a done-for-you (DFY) solution to mimic company processes for AI agents
4. Train the custom AI agents
To ensure your AI agents are able to keep up with customer queries, you need to train them on relevant data. Solutions like Auralis AI integrate seamlessly with your knowledgebase, CRM, FAQs, helpdesk software, communication channels, and other data sets across platforms to enable the agents to learn from the most up-to-date information on processes, products/ services, resolutions, and more.
It is also recommended to identify the areas where AI agents may misinterpret queries and set up a workflow for human agent handoff.
5. Train the human agents
While AI can take care of learning from your data input, we recommend also training human agents. This helps them understand where AI agents can assist them when handling customer queries.
Being aware of all the features and capabilities of custom AI agents helps human agents leverage automation effectively for customer support. It also helps them make use of AI as co-pilots to fetch information in real time when dealing with complex queries.
6. Monitor and improve
Since custom AI agents are tailor-built, it’s important to monitor the performance of the workflow you have set up. This includes measuring support metrics like response times, resolution rate, customer satisfaction rate, agent productivity levels, and similar parameters.
Regular updates to the training data can also help AI agents adapt to the changes in customer needs around new products/ services. This ensures your automated workflows remain effective.
Also read: Best practices for implementing AI-powered support automation
Different use cases of custom AI agents in customer support
Custom AI agents can be used in several ways across industries:
- Banking, Finance, and Insurance – Custom AI agents can monitor fraud, assist with account inquiries, streamline loan and insurance processes, and expedite claims, reducing manual intervention.
- Logistics and Supply Chain – AI agents provide real-time shipment tracking, manage inventory queries, resolve delivery issues, and assist warehouse operations for a seamless logistics experience.
- Software and SaaS – AI agents handle troubleshooting, user onboarding, billing queries, and personalized feature guidance, enhancing user experience and engagement.
- Healthcare and Medical – Custom AI agents in healthcare support appointment scheduling, symptom checking, insurance inquiries, and portal navigation, easing patient-provider interactions.
- Government and Utilities – Government AI agents manage service requests, billing questions, program guidance, and crisis information, streamlining public access to essential services.
- Retail and E-commerce – Custom AI agents assist with product recommendations, order tracking, returns, and inventory checks, creating a more efficient and personalized shopping experience.
Conclusion
Custom AI agents are enabling companies to go beyond the usual customer support automation to create more engaging experiences.
But setting up a custom AI agent can be a daunting task. This is where solutions like Auralis AI come in handy – with a done-for-you (DFY) service, we help you understand the workflows required to streamline your processes while adhering to company guidelines, and set up the agents for you.
Want to know more about advanced and custom AI agents for customer support? Book a demo today.
