First-line client support
Most of what clients ask already has its answer in one of your systems: where is my order, what is happening with my ticket, can you resend the certificate. An AI agent can answer those by email from your records and pass everything else on with the facts attached, so your experienced people are no longer interrupted for a look-up.
The role in brief
Answers routine client questions by email from your records, sends copies of existing documents, and routes everything else to the right person with a summary.
Your support mailbox and whichever system holds the answer, such as a broking system, an ERP or a service desk.
The service manager or office manager. Complaints, questions the record cannot answer, and anything needing advice or a decision go to a named person.
Questions answered from the record, time to first reply, and questions passed to a person.
Routine questions land on whoever is nearest
In a brokerage the routine questions go to an account handler, in a wholesaler to the sales office, at an IT support firm to the service desk. Each question takes a look-up in one system and a short reply, and each one interrupts something harder. When the team is stretched the easy questions wait longest, and the client asks again.
Skilled people doing look-ups
The person who can place a difficult risk, rescue a late delivery or fix a server is also the one finding a copy invoice. The look-up needs only their access to the system, and it breaks their concentration many times a day.
The same question, asked twice
A client with no answer by the afternoon sends a second email, or phones. Now two threads cover one order or one ticket, sometimes with two different people, and the reply takes longer to get right than the first one would have.
Answers that depend on who replies
One person checks the record before replying and another answers from memory. A delivery date or a remark about cover, given loosely, becomes a promise the business has to keep, or a complaint when it cannot.
From a client's email to an answer or a hand-over
Working in your support mailbox, the AI worker answers only from the record, starting with the types of question you agree. Complaints, advice and judgement stay with your people.
Read
Reads each message in the support mailbox, identifies the client and the order, policy or ticket it concerns, and works out what is being asked.
Nothing.
Look up
Finds the answer in the record, whether a status, a date or a document. Where the record does not hold it, says so and does not guess.
Nothing.
Reply
Writes the reply from the record, attaches the existing document that was asked for, and logs the exchange against the client.
Reply types you have not agreed; in an FCA-regulated firm, anything beyond a copy document or an approved status line.
Hand over
Passes anything else to the right person with a summary of who asked, what they want, what the record shows and what has been said so far.
Complaints, advice, changes to an order or a policy, and every phone call.
Questions answered from the record
The share of incoming questions closed with an answer taken from your systems, shown by type of question. Reviewed with you each month.
Time to first reply
Counted for every question, from its arrival in the mailbox to the first reply, whether the agent's or a person's.
Questions passed to a person
How many went to your team, who received them, and why, whether a complaint, a gap in the record or a decision.
Insurance brokers
A copy certificate or schedule sent to the client's contact in approved wording; a claim update drafted for the account handler to approve.
Wholesale and distribution
Is it in stock, when will it arrive, can I have a copy invoice. Each answered from the stock and order records in your ERP.
MSPs and IT support
What is happening with my ticket, answered from its status and notes in your PSA. Faults and access requests go to the service desk.
Questions owners ask
How does it know when not to answer?
It answers only the types of question you have agreed, and only where the record holds the answer. A complaint, a request to change something, a question about what the client ought to do, or an incomplete record all go to a person with a summary. The client is told it has been passed on.
What happens when a client complains?
The agent does not answer a complaint. It passes it to a named person with a summary of who asked, what they want, what the record shows and what has been said so far, and the client is told it has been passed on.
What if our records are wrong or out of date?
Then an answer drawn from them would be wrong too, so the role starts with the questions whose records you trust. Where a record is missing or contradicts itself, the agent does not guess. It hands the question to a person and says what it found.
Can it send documents to our clients?
It can send the client's own contact a copy of a document already on the record, an invoice or a certificate, without creating, altering or confirming anything. A request from anyone else goes to a person. In a regulated firm such as an insurance broker, anything beyond a copy document or an approved status line waits for a handler.