According to a Gartner survey, 85% of customer service leaders will explore or pilot a customer-facing Gen AI solution by the end of 2025. As the technology becomes more accessible, businesses must consider whether to adopt it, continue using human agents, or implement a hybrid approach that combines the best of both. In this post, we explore using an AI chatbot for website support, discuss its advantages and disadvantages over human agents and look at the potential of hybrid systems.
Contents
The benefits of AI chatbots
AI chatbots are transforming how websites handle customer enquiries. Using technologies, like natural language processing and machine learning, they enable users to have meaningful interactions with websites and can respond instantly, understand user intent, and crucially, deal with large numbers of customers.
Moreover, Salesforce reports that, ‘77% of customers believe chatbots are already transforming or will transform their expectations of companies within five years.’ Websites that don’t adopt them may therefore fail to meet user expectations.
Some of the most valuable advantages of chatbots include:
- 24/7 availability: Unlike human agents, chatbots can work around the clock.
- Fast response times: A well-trained chatbot can answer questions almost instantaneously. Unlike agents, they don’t need to look up details before giving a response. This reduces waiting times for customers.
- Scalability: Chatbots can handle thousands of conversations simultaneously without extra staffing costs.
- Consistent responses: Chatbots provide uniform replies, which helps maintain brand consistency.
- Efficient triage: If unable to provide the level of assistance needed, AI chatbots can collect basic information and direct users to the most appropriate human agent.
In this sense, chatbots are ideal for answering FAQs, processing basic transactions and assessing enquiries before escalating them to a human rep. In terms of impact, after launching its AI assistant, Barking & Dagenham Council saved £48,000 in 6 months and saw customer satisfaction increase by 67%,’ (EBI.AI).
Discover other ways to improve CX, read: How to Enhance Customer Experience on Your Online Store
The case for human agents
While AI chatbots excel in speed and scale, they don’t yet offer the level of understanding and empathy of a human being. Nor do they provide the same level of trust that customers get from speaking to a real person. For this reason, having human agents is vital for sensitively handling complex or emotional issues, as well as negotiations and situations where human judgement or personal rapport is essential.
This is particularly true when dealing with customers who are frustrated, confused or upset. In these cases, a human is best placed to be compassionate and ease tension.
When a hybrid model works best
While some businesses have considered replacing customer support teams with AI, research from Salesforce suggests AI is more widely used to augment human skills, rather than substituting them.
With a hybrid approach, chatbots can handle initial contact and answer most queries, leaving humans to deal with more pressing cases. Importantly, the AI can understand when escalation is required and put the customer through to the right person.
As a result, a hybrid customer service setup provides:
- At-scale efficiency: Chatbots can handle the vast bulk of enquiries, freeing agents from carrying out repetitive tasks.
- Better customer experiences: : Users get quick answers and human help when needed.
- Smarter handovers: The AI collects details upfront, ensuring human agents have the information to deal with issues promptly.
- Cost savings with quality control: Fewer human agents are needed, but those in place focus on cases where they make the greatest impact.
Salesforce adds that 80% of decision-makers believe AI chatbots are most effective when deployed in this way. Moreover, EBI.AI adds that ‘Even in small contact centres, 74% report that AI increases revenue, 87% say that AI reduces agent effort, and 92% report that AI saves time resolving customer issues.’
Discover other ways to utilise AI, read: Generative AI: What is it and How Can it Benefit Website Owners?
Matching approach to need
What makes an effective customer support solution will depend on the nature of individual businesses, their audience’s expectations and the type of enquiries they need to handle.
Busy online stores, for example, often receive many straightforward queries, such as questions about delivery times, product details or returns policies. When the AI is integrated with the company’s databases, inventory and website content, chatbots can deal with them quickly and easily.
Service businesses, meanwhile, often deal with complex queries that require a personalised response. Giving product information is much easier than helping someone find the right mortgage or dental treatment. While a chatbot can handle initial contact and gather important information, the nature of these queries requires a human agent.
Technical support is another area where a hybrid approach works well. Many internet service providers now use AI to help with common issues, such as poor Wi-Fi or broadband connections, just by giving scripted advice or step-by-step guides. However, when these cannot be resolved (e.g. by rebooting the router), human agents are necessary to check network connectivity and device health and arrange engineer callouts.
Businesses will need to understand the kinds of queries they receive to implement a customer service model that best suits their needs.
Hosting requirements for AI chatbot integration
To run AI chatbots effectively, especially at scale, you will need the right hosting setup. While many websites run perfectly well on shared hosting, this solution won’t provide the necessary processing power to run a website and a busy AI chatbot.
Instead, you should consider VPS or cloud hosting. Cloud is particularly beneficial as it provides the scalability needed for AI applications and supports API integration. The latter is important, as most AI chatbots rely on third-party platforms that require seamless data exchange.
At the same time, high-performance infrastructure, such as NVMe storage, high-speed RAM and Intel Xeon CPUs, helps reduce latency, ensuring your chatbot provides speedy responses.
Considering cloud adoption? Read: A Multi-Faceted Approach to Successful Cloud Adoption for Your Business
Conclusion
According to research by EBI.AI, ‘the advantages of using live chat include improved website experience, increased average order value, increased sales, lead generation, and a better understanding of customer requirements.’ While chatbots cannot replace human empathy and flexibility, when incorporated into a hybrid customer service model, businesses and their customers get the best of both options.
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