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4 Reasons Why AI Helps Customer Service

4/5/2021

 
Automation supported by artificial intelligence (AI) is already here. It is not in the future anymore. What are 4 Reasons why AI helps customer service? We will provide four reasons beyond the existing customer service automation. Even though AI customer service is not working flawlessly, automation already is. From food delivery to autonomous home devices and automatic check-ins at resorts to airport luggage check-ins, automation has slowly become an essential part of our everyday lives. This article will provide four reasons why AI automation will assist in customer service even more in the future.

What Does Survey Data Say About AI?

A Gartner survey predicted that soon over 80-percent of all customers would be handled by autonomous systems. Automatic AI-powered systems will benefit your clients/customers and help improve your support team and agents’ overall performance. In addition, your agents will now be able to save both effort and time. For instance, by letting virtual assistants go through rigorous information searches, they do not have to spend the time to research better solutions themselves.

Agents that use smart systems tend to get smarter themselves. And when you can resolve problems more accurately in less time, you are bound to save a lot on your business’s customer service. If that is not enough, some AI-powered systems can even handle specific queries on their own. For instance, handling the most common questions means that companies can fully automate their front-end support. Above all, the back-end teams can improve accuracy and performance by using the information that automatically comes to them.

Let us see a few other reasons why AI customer service systems are the way of the future. In other words, what are 4 reasons why AI helps customer service?they do not have to spend the time to research better solutions themselves.

1. Solving customer service issues before they even arise

Steve Job’s understanding of what customers want is why he was able to make Apple so successful. He claimed you had to give people what they want because they do not know what they want themselves. Above all, AI-powered systems can bring this to life in the customer support part of a business.

Because AI customer service tools can track customer behavior at all levels, they can predict customer problems before they even happen with deep learning systems. Therefore, predictions can be made by understanding how your customers interact with your brand and vice versa. We have seen this in the Zoho Intelligent Assistant (ZIA) included as part of Zoho One and Zoho CRM.

Above all, the most significant benefit of having automated customer service systems is that they can audit incredibly long lists of websites and applications. An AI-backed automated system can determine the distressful or illogical elements a customer might face during the buying process. The system may also be able to preempt the situation and provide a resolution even before the query comes up.

2. People need practice. AI does not

Hiring and training support agents cost significant capital and time. One of the most significant challenges most call centers face is staff attrition. Staff attrition reduces the effectiveness or strength of a call center due to decreased staff strength. In other words, staff attrition will eventually force you to both hire and train new team members all over again. In addition, you will have to reinvest in resources retraining team members. When you combine this with increased client handling times, you get bad customer experiences.

When you compare the cost of setting up a physical call center against AI customer service systems that cost way less, the latter has economic advantages. As the technology improves over time, AI automation should become unequivocally superior. Similarly, even if you already have a competent staff, processes might get revised with improved AI automation.  After that, your team might need retraining. On the other hand, the design of automated customer support centers copes with any changes. The worst-case scenario is the need for reconfigurations or staff changes.

3. Creating a defined sense of reliability

AI-backed, automated customer service can provide you with the support systems customers want. Many businesses are now dying to get their hands on these systems for improved customer service. One of the best things about using AI customer service systems is that they come with numerous personalization options with no emotions. Because emotions are a huge part of human existence, human representatives are likely to get biased sometimes. On the other hand, automated agents do not have such emotions and can cater appropriately to all kinds of customers.

However, if you wonder how you can cater to the customer with a complex issue that can only be attended to by a human, note that these AI-backed systems can typically transfer a query to a human manager/agent. The manager/agent chosen will then use the records and resources to address the customer’s problem. Therefore, with both the records and background of the complex issue, agents can solve problems much faster. Everyone should experience minimal frustration or the hassle that comes with handling simple calls from beginning to end.

4. Encouraging self-service processes to help customer service

The customer service space is changing faster than most businesses imagined it would. The need to reduce human costs while improving customer service and experience exemplifies what is in demand today. Millennials generally do not like being forced to interact with human agents. Nothing suits today’s consumers more than getting their issues resolved 24×7 by interactive systems that significantly outperform most humans.

The most crucial thing modern-day businesses should be able to do is effectively adapt to changing times. Those that do not adapt will eventually be outcompeted by those that do. As a business, you should be able to gauge what the current customer, as well as the upcoming customer, will need. The next generation of customers will have higher expectations and will be even more self-reliant. Therefore, developing automated, AI customer service systems now will be a competitive advantage in your near future.

How Can You Learn More About AI and Customer Service?

In today’s competitive, tech-savvy business world, you cannot expect sustainable growth if you do not consider AI customer service systems. AI automation can improve customer service, reduce costs, and provide more scalability. Hopefully, these 4 reasons why AI helps customer service have given you an insight into the future. Self-service customer support systems are now upon us, so do not be left behind. Agents and support representatives already have some automation. With AI improvements arriving, fewer people may be able to handle your customer service requirements. These systems are what the new generation of consumer wants. Hopefully, this article has helped show you why these systems are the future, as well as why you should start integrating them into your business.

Understand the latest in emerging technologies, including AI, in our Emerging Technology courses. Learn about CRM here, or attend our CPD courses on accounting and customer support systems in small business accounting with add-ons or mid-market accounting, which includes cash flow systems.

Randy Johnston

The Cost of Paper

9/7/2020

 
With the move to working from home, one of the restrictions for many organizations is the reliance on paper. When an organization looks at moving to a paperless office the decision is made to postpone the process due to costs. These costs are easy to calculate and include scanners, multi-monitors, PDF editing software, and electronic document management software.

However, a paperless office may cost less. To make the decision a calculation of the cost of paper in your organization is needed.

Using our spreadsheet let’s calculate the cost of paper for your organization.

Paper and Printing

How many boxes of paper does your organization use a year?

With the volume of paper, we can calculate the total pages and estimate the cost for the paper and printing.

Time to File a Document

Using the spreadsheet, input the average number of pages per document, time to file a document, and hourly staff cost.

For many, this time is considered equal to filing electronically; however, the time to file paper can be much longer when you include the walk to and from the filing cabinet. Electronic document management may also provide automatic filing of documents.

Time to Pull Documents

How long does it take someone to pull a document? For many offices, this time can be even longer than the time to originally file it.

Consider the case of the paper document that you can’t find. How long did you spend yesterday looking for a document? Moving to paperless allows for all documents to be indexed and found with a quick search.

Documents Purged

Purging of paper documents can be very labour intensive as you locate, retrieve and document the files being purged. A paperless system can do this function automatically.

Shredding Service

Purging of paper documents can be very labour intensive as you locate, retrieve and document the files being purged. A paperless system can do this function automatically.

Space for Filing Cabinets

When you calculate the square footage used for filing cabinets it quickly adds up to a significant cost.

Summary

After completing the spreadsheet, the cost of paper documents may surprise you. Reducing the use of paper and the related cost of paper can often cover the costs of moving to a paperless office. A paperless office will also provide the benefits of improved workflow, improved document sharing, quicker access, and an improved working from home experience.
To learn more about the advantages of eliminating the cost of paper, consider participating in K2's Paperless Office.

Ward Blatch

Automation of Bills and Receipts - A Followup

7/4/2020

 
In our previous post, we discussed using one of the online automation tools to process your bills and receipts. For many who are not using an online accounting solution, the advantages appeared limited. In this post, we will cover the benefits these tools, like Receipt Bank, bring to any business.

Organization and Filing

The efficiencies gained from these services include:

  • Time previously required to file, archive, and destroy bills and receipts
  • Additional office space made available by the elimination of filing cabinets
  • Quick access to any invoice or receipt
  • Automatic extraction of the vendor, date, invoice number, amount, and taxes to speed up posting
  • Automatic account allocation of expenses

The quick access to any expense document is possible by a search based on the amount, date, supplier, payment method, category, or any combination of these variables.

The need to go to the vendor site, log in, download, and process the invoice is automatic with the tool fetching recurring invoices from a long list of supported vendors. Check out the full listing for Receipt Bank at https://help.receipt-bank.com/hc/en-us/articles/360005754174-List-of-Suppliers-for-Invoice-Fetch

Transaction Summary

Now that you have all of your invoices and receipts automatically saved and the data extracted, you can export the critical information. Using Receipt Bank as an example, filter the list of documents in the archive and select the receipts and invoices to export. 
Picture
Figure 1 - Select Items to Export

Now click export, select the format from the drop-down list, and click Generate.
Picture
Figure 2 - Select CSV Format from the drop-down list

Export your items using the various options to find the CSV format that works best for you. For this example, we used the Receipt Bank Default.

Save the exported CSV file in a folder with the other exports from previous days, weeks or months.

Summarizing with Excel

With all the export files in a single folder, you can now use Excel’s get data from folder feature to combine the results into a single table or pivot table.

Get Data from Folder is found in the data ribbon under Get Data > From File > From Folder. The panel that opens requires you to complete the folder path.
Picture
Figure 3 - Get Data Folder

With the folder path completed, click OK and the list of files will be displayed, now click combine.
Picture
Figure 4 - Review the list and click Combine & Load

The next screen provides a sample from the First File, click OK. The data is now in a single table in Excel.
Picture
Figure 5 - Combined Data

With the next export file added to the folder, a right-click on the table and selecting refresh will cause Excel to rerun the query and update the table to include the new data.

A summary of the receipts using the sumifs function or a pivot table can be the basis of your accounting entry. 
Picture
Figure 6 - Summary of Expenses

Export the receipts to a PDF as a backup for the entry.

Summary

It is time to look at automation to extract data from your receipts and bills. Whether you connect to online accounting, export and summarize for posting or post each entry in your accounting system manually, the time savings are significant.

To try Receipt Bank free for 30 days go to Receipt Bank to sign up. Other options include Auto Entry and HubDoc .

Ward Blatch, CPA CA

Automation of Bills and Receipts

6/1/2020

 
With today’s automation tools it is quick and easy to capture data from receipts, bills, invoices and bank statements. Applications like Auto Entry, Hub Doc, and Receipt Bank provide a low-cost system to save significant time in processing your organization’s bills and receipts. 

Using Receipt Bank as an example, let’s take a closer look at what these services can do for your organization.  

RESOURCE: Receipt Bank Submission Methods

Submitting Items

The first step is getting supporting documents to process receipts, bills, and expense reports. Receipt Bank provides several ways to do this, including snapping a picture with your smartphone, emailing, scanning, using a drobox folder, or automatic fetching.  

Fetching will automatically login to supplier sites and download your receipts for you. Receipt Bank checks authorized suppliers weekly. Fetching frees you from having to visit supplier websites, logging in, finding the document and downloading it. Check out the extensive list of currently supported suppliers at https://help.receipt-bank.com.

Processing

Once Receipt Bank receives the bill or receipt, it uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) to extract key fields from the document. These fields include vendor, date, total, taxes, and the payment method if applicable.  

With all the information extracted by Receipt Bank, you simply input a category for the expense. If it is a frequent vendor, you can configure supplier rules, including the category, default tax, and payment method. 

Posting and Summarizing

With the details completed, you can now add the invoice to an expense report, post it directly to your online accounting program (including QuickBooks, Sage Accounting, Xero, and others), or download the details as a PDF or CSV file. 

If you are not using an online accounting program, you can use the CSV file to import the transactions or create a summary for posting into your accounting system.

Archive

Receipt Bank retains an archive of all your documents for quick and easy access. In addition, you can download copies as PDF, and when using an online accounting program, a copy of the document is attached to the transaction. 

Improved Workflow and Time Savings

The result of using one of these automation tools is:  

  • Bills and receipts are quickly captured and processed 
  • Multiple supplier documents are automatically downloaded and processed 
  • No more time spent sorting and filing invoices and receipts 
  • Quick and easy access to any document stored 
  • Secure archival of documents 

I recommend giving automation a try for yourself. I have found the improved workflow and time savings are significant. Use the following links to sign up for a free trial.   

Receipt Bank 
Auto Entry 
HubDoc

Ward Blatch

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    Authors


    Ward Blatch
    Ward provides consulting and training services as the Managing Director of K2E Canada Inc. He joined K2E Canada in 2005 and is responsible for the Canadian operations of this international consulting group, which provides professional development technology education for accountants across Canada and the US. Ward lives in rural Nova Scotia and can be reached at ward@k2e.ca.

    Tommy Stephens
    Tommy is one of the shareholders in K2 Enterprises, affiliating with the Firm in 2003 and joining as a shareholder in 2017. At K2, Tommy focuses on creating and delivering content and is responsible for many of the Firm's management and marketing functions. Tommy resides in the metro Atlanta area. You may reach him at tommy@k2e.com.

    Randy Johnson
    Randy is a nationally recognized educator, consultant, and writer with over 40 years experience in Strategic Technology Planning, Accounting Software Selection, Paperless, Systems and Network Integration, Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Planning, Business Development and Management, Process Engineering and outsourced managed services. Randy can be reached at randy@k2e.com


    Bernie Smith
    Bernie coaches businesses to develop meaningful KPIs and present their management information in the clearest possible way to support good decision making. As the owner of Made to Measure KPIs, he has worked with major organisations including HSBC, Airbus, UBS, Barclays, Credit Suisse, Lloyds and many more.

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