Conversational AI has been helping businesses respond faster and more personally to customers. Customers expect instant responses, but many companies struggle with long wait times and overloaded support teams.
With conversational AI, companies can move beyond the long wait times and generic responses that frustrate customers. It enables real-time conversations that feel more natural while offering solutions that directly address a customer’s needs.
In this article, we’ll explore how conversational AI works and why more businesses are turning to it to solve common customer service challenges. We’ll also discover how Odin AI makes it simple for companies to provide fast, reliable support without putting extra strain on their teams.
Improve your customer service with instant, personalized support—try Odin AI today!
How Conversational AI Works in Customer Service
Conversational AI uses advanced technology, including generative AI, to understand and respond to customer inquiries in real time. This technology combines Natural Language Processing (NLP), machine learning, and data analysis to interact with users naturally and effectively.
Here’s how it works:
Input from the user: The customer asks a question or requests help through text or voice
Language processing: The AI system processes the input, using algorithms to break down the sentence and determine what the customer is asking
Intent identification: The system identifies the intent behind the query
Response generation: Using generative AI capabilities, the AI formulates a response based on the identified intent
The Role of Human Agents in AI Support
While conversational AI for customer service can manage many routine inquiries efficiently, there are times when a customer’s issue is too complex for AI to resolve independently.
In such cases, customer service teams step in to guarantee a seamless support experience. The AI system is designed to transfer the conversation to a human agent when needed while providing the agent with all the context from the previous interaction.
This allows customer service teams to address complex issues without requiring the customer to repeat themselves, which leads to a more satisfying support experience.
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Top 5 Conversational AI Platforms for Customer Service
The best conversational AI tools don’t just automate responses—they create meaningful, efficient interactions that boost customer satisfaction and reduce the workload on support teams.
Below, we highlight the top five conversational AI platforms for customer service.
1. Odin AI
Odin AI stands out as a leading conversational AI platform for customer service, designed to provide fast, reliable, and personalized support experiences. Its robust capabilities include a range of integrations with over 200 applications.
Odin’s conversational AI leverages advanced language models and machine learning to interpret customer queries accurately by providing relevant responses that mimic natural conversation.
The platform also offers a no-code interface that allows businesses to build, deploy, and refine custom chatbots and virtual assistants without technical expertise.
Odin AI also supports multi-channel engagement, which means it can provide consistent support across:
Websites
Social media platforms
Mobile apps
The platform’s data analytics capabilities allow businesses to track and measure performance metrics such as response times and customer satisfaction scores.
With Odin AI, businesses benefit from a scalable, easy-to-integrate solution that not only reduces response times but also builds long-term customer loyalty by delivering accurate and engaging support.
Pricing:
You can choose from these pricing plans:
- Teams Plan: Costs $2,500 per month and is ideal for small and medium businesses
- Enterprise Plan: Custom pricing and is suitable for large-scale corporations and businesses
Both plans give you access to Agentic AI for every business function, whether it’s sales, marketing, customer support, IT, healthcare, HR, finance, or legal.
Book a demo with Odin AI and elevate your customer service with fast, personalized support. Start your 14-day free trial today and see the difference Odin AI can make for your business!
2. Zendesk Answer Bot
Source: Zendesk.com
Zendesk’s Answer Bot is an AI tool for businesses aiming to streamline customer service through conversational AI.
Designed to handle routine inquiries, Answer Bot uses machine learning to provide instant responses. The platform directs customers to relevant help articles or solutions without human intervention.
This feature integrates across multiple channels, which include email, chat, and social media. Customers can then access support on their preferred platform.
Pricing:
Suite Team: $55/month – Includes Answer Bot for basic customer support, with email, chat, voice, and social media integration
Suite Growth: $89/month – Adds SLA management, customer satisfaction ratings, multilingual support
Suite Professional: $115/month – Offers custom analytics and skills-based routing
Suite Enterprise: Custom pricing – With additional features like custom agent roles, advanced data privacy
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3. Intercom
Source: Intercom.com
Intercom’s Fin AI Agent is a conversational AI platform designed for personalized customer service. Fin applies comprehensive knowledge management to integrate information from various sources like internal content, public help center articles, and external data.
The platform adapts to each business’s tone of voice to guarantee brand consistency across interactions and provides responses in over 45 languages. This AI agent includes features like automated responses, real-time conversation monitoring, and AI-driven CSAT scores.
Pricing:
Essential Plan: $39/month – Basic AI-powered support for startups and small businesses, includes key Fin features
Advanced Plan: $99/month – Automation tools and enhanced AI features for growing support teams
Expert Plan: $139/month – Advanced collaboration, security, and reporting tools
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4. IBM Watsonx Assistant
Source: Ibm.com
IBM’s Watsonx Assistant offers a conversational AI solution designed to improve customer service, employee productivity, and scalability across various business operations.
With a user-friendly interface that includes a drag-and-drop conversation builder, Watsonx Assistant supports users in building AI-driven customer service experiences without coding expertise.
It builds on IBM’s advanced large language models (LLMs), natural language processing, and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) to provide accurate, contextual responses integrated with a company’s knowledge base.
Pricing:
Lite Plan: $0/month – Includes basic conversational AI features and engaging user interactions with media options
Plus Plan: Starting at $140/month – Offers phone and SMS integration, includes 1,000 Monthly Active Users (MAUs)
Enterprise Plan: Custom pricing – Provides enterprise-grade support, data governance, and scalable setup with IBM’s sales team
5. Google Dialogflow
Source: Cloud.google.com
Google Dialogflow provides a platform for building conversational AI agents by integrating both deterministic and generative AI capabilities. This approach lets businesses maintain strict controls while improving customer experiences through natural, intuitive interactions.
Dialogflow supports conversational AI features. It’s suitable for applications like voicebots for customer service and chatbots for B2C conversations.
Pricing:
Free Trial: New customers receive a $600 credit for a no-cost trial of Dialogflow CX, valid for the first 12 months.
Dialogflow CX: Monthly charges based on edition and the number of requests
Usage-Based Pricing: Each session (either chat or voice) and request incurs charges that vary by agent type and required functionalities
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The Importance of Conversational AI in Customer Service
Conversational AI is changing customer service by providing fast, efficient, and cost-effective solutions for managing customer inquiries.
Here are the key reasons why implementing conversational AI is important for customer service:
Meeting Customer Expectations with Conversational AI
As customer service needs grow, more businesses turn to conversational AI to meet customer expectations for quick and efficient support. AI tools, especially chatbots, are becoming a key part of handling large numbers of inquiries, and their role is set to expand in the coming years.
According to Gartner, Inc., chatbots will be the main customer service channel for about 25% of companies by 2027. This shows how much businesses trust AI to manage customer interactions effectively.
Cost Savings Through Conversational AI
Businesses adopt conversational AI because of the cost savings it brings. AI can manage customer inquiries at a fraction of the cost, especially during high-demand periods.
A study by IBM highlights that businesses using conversational AI in customer service reduce operational costs by 30%. These savings can be reinvested in other areas, such as improving the customer experience, training staff, or expanding business operations.
Building Customer Loyalty with Excellent Service
Providing excellent customer service is essential for building loyalty. According to 2023 HubSpot research, 93% of customers will likely make repeat purchases from companies with great customer service.
Conversational AI helps businesses deliver fast and accurate support, which can improve customer engagement and encourage them to return.
Transform your customer support—start with Odin AI!
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Use Cases of Conversational AI in Customer Service
Below are some of the most practical uses of conversational AI in customer service that personalize customer interactions and reduce the workload on human agents.
Chatbots
Chatbots have become an integral part of modern customer service operations because they can manage a wide range of inquiries. They help streamline customer service operations by automating responses and reducing the need for human intervention.
Chatbots are ideal for tasks such as:
Helping customers track orders
Addressing frequently asked questions
Scheduling appointments
Assisting with account login
Virtual Assistants
Virtual assistants offer a personalized experience by leveraging customer data like past interactions, purchase history, and preferences. These intelligent assistants add value to customer service operations by:
Analyzing customer behavior or purchase history
Handling complex requests
Initiating conversations
Engaging customers across various platforms
Voice Assistants
Voice assistants interact with customers using human language to provide seamless, hands-free support.
By understanding and responding to verbal commands, these AI technologies enable users to ask questions or give instructions through natural speech.
This technology proves especially beneficial in industries such as retail, healthcare, and hospitality, where quick, voice-activated responses can enhance the customer experience.
Voice assistants can offer:
Real-time information about services
Voice-based troubleshooting for tech products
The ability to place orders through smart speakers
As a conversational AI tool, voice assistants bridge the gap between AI technologies and human language so companies can deliver efficient, accessible support without requiring users to type or navigate complex interfaces.
Proactive Support and Notifications
Rather than waiting for customers to reach out with issues, conversational AI can anticipate needs and offer timely assistance or updates, which creates a more engaging customer experience.
Proactive support powered by conversational AI technology can include:
Sending order status updates and delivery notifications
Reminding customers about upcoming appointments
Notifying users of important changes to their accounts or services
Offering product or service recommendations
By using conversational AI to reach out to customers with relevant information, businesses can reduce the number of incoming inquiries while also fostering a sense of care and attentiveness in their customer service approach.
Unlock automation potential—start your 14-day free trial with Odin AI!
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How to Implement a Conversational AI Strategy for Customer Service
Whether you’re starting from scratch or upgrading your current system, a solution like Odin AI can improve customer satisfaction and streamline your operations.
Understand Customer Needs
A successful conversational AI strategy starts with knowing what your customers need most. Before setting up AI, review your current interactions and identify the most common customer queries or problems.
Start by reviewing past emails, chat logs, or call recordings and looking for patterns in the questions your customers ask.
Are they frequently asking about:
Order statuses
Troubleshooting product issues
Account management or password resets
Product availability and pricing
Next, group these tasks by how easy or difficult they are to solve.
AI chatbots can easily handle simple tasks like answering FAQs, checking orders, or booking appointments. More complex issues, such as billing problems or technical troubleshooting, may still need a mix of AI and human help.
Customize with Language Models
AI can create language models that fit the specific needs of your business and industry. Instead of relying on generic responses, you can customize the AI to understand your sector’s unique terminology and language patterns.
With tools like Odin AI, you can combine multiple language models to create a system that meets their needs. It allows you to build custom models that align with your business.
Customization guarantees your AI can provide more precise responses and avoid misunderstandings.
Offer Fast, Personalized Responses
Conversational AI guarantees that customers receive immediate assistance without waiting for a human agent. AI can also offer personalized responses to each customer’s unique situation.
With tools like Odin AI, AI agents can recognize patterns in customer behavior and use this information to provide customized answers. For example, if a customer has contacted your business about an order issue, the AI can remember this and offer an update immediately.
The AI can also adjust its responses based on:
Customer preferences
Location
Account history
For example, if a customer frequently asks about product recommendations, the AI can use their purchase history to suggest items that fit their needs.
Provide 24/7 Support Across All Platforms
Customers expect immediate responses. With conversational AI, businesses can meet this expectation without relying on customer service teams working around the clock.
Being available on all platforms through AI reduces the frustration of customers trying to contact you through various touchpoints.
With Odin AI, your business can offer seamless support across multiple platforms. Customers can reach out through their preferred method whenever they need help and still receive consistent, high-quality service.
Prioritize Accurate, Localized, and Reliable Responses
With Odin AI, businesses can provide accurate, localized, and reliable responses, which helps build customer trust.
Accurate responses are important because customers rely on businesses to provide them with clear and correct information. Odin AI minimizes mistakes and ensures that answers are based on real data.
Transparency helps customers trust the AI and verify the information if necessary. This conversational AI platform pulls data from trusted sources and provides answers with clear citations when needed.
Localized responses mean that the AI can adjust answers based on the customer’s:
Location
Language
Cultural context
For example, a customer in the U.K. asking about shipping will get information specific to that region, including local shipping times and currency.
Leverage Continuous Improvement and Scaling
Focus on continuous improvement and scaling to keep your conversational AI effective over time. As customer needs change, your AI system must adapt and grow with them.
Continuous improvement involves regularly updating the AI to make it smarter and more capable over time. Reviewing customer feedback and tweaking the AI’s responses to improve its ability to recognize more complex queries is also important.
Odin AI allows businesses to continuously improve their AI models and scale them as needed. This platform makes it easy to increase the capacity of your AI system to handle a larger volume of interactions without sacrificing quality.
Simplify customer interactions—choose Odin AI!
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How to Set up a Conversational AI Chatbot for Your Business
Setting up a conversational marketing chatbot is a great way to engage with customers, generate leads, and provide personalized support.
Here’s how you can create an effective marketing chatbot for your customer service:
Choose the Right Platform
The first step in setting up a chatbot is choosing the right platform to host it. Your platform choice should depend on where your customers most interact with your business. You may opt for your website, social media platforms like Facebook Messenger, or mobile apps.
With Odin AI, you have the flexibility to integrate your chatbot across multiple platforms so that your customers can engage with it on their preferred channels.
Whether your audience is most active on your website or messaging apps, this conversational AI tool provides seamless integration across various touchpoints.
Design the Conversation Flow
Once you’ve chosen the platform, it’s time to design the conversation flow. This is how the chatbot interacts with customers. It guides them through responses based on their input.
Start by identifying the main tasks you want the chatbot to handle, such as:
Answering FAQs
Collecting lead information
Offering product recommendations
Then, map out the paths a conversation could take to cover how a customer phrases a question. This ensures that the chatbot can handle a variety of interactions while keeping the conversation relevant and engaging.
Build and Integrate the Chatbot
Odin’s platform helps you create chatbots and gives you insights into their performance so you can improve and simplify conversations.
You can access Odin’s Public Chatbot feature if you’re a Pro Plan user. First, create a Support project in your dashboard to use this tool for customer support on your website.
However, for the chatbot to work on your site, your project must be public. If it’s not public, Odin will show a warning, and the chatbot will not function.
To make your project public:
Go to Settings in your Odin dashboard.
Click the “Make Project Public” button.
Once the project is public, you can use the chatbot on your website, allowing customers to access instant support.
Set Up and Customize the Chatbot
After publicizing your project, click the Public Chatbot option in the left sidebar. Odin provides a default chatbot, which you can customize based on your needs.
You can also use specialized agents with a tailored knowledge base to give more personalized responses to your customers.
For more customization, you can integrate your specialized agents into the chatbot to improve its handling of specific inquiries and the user experience.
Test and Train the Chatbot
Before launching your chatbot, testing and training it to ensure it works smoothly is important. Start by running simulations of real customer interactions, checking how well the chatbot handles different questions and scenarios.
Launch and Monitor
Once you’ve tested and fine-tuned your chatbot, it’s time to launch it to your audience. Make sure the chatbot is active on all relevant platforms, and inform your customers about its availability for support or inquiries.
Automate your support—choose Odin AI!
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Get Personalized Customer Support at Scale with Odin AI
Looking to improve your customer service and offer your customers a better experience? Odin’s conversational AI solution is the best tool for providing fast, personalized support.
Odin AI makes it easy for your business to handle a large number of customer inquiries, such as answering common questions or solving more complex issues. It reduces the strain on your customer service team by taking care of routine tasks.
Provide your customers with quick, efficient support to improve their experience with your business. Try Odin AI and see how it can help your business grow!
Book a demo today to explore Odin AI’s capabilities firsthand.
Have more questions?
Contact our sales team to learn more about how Odin AI can benefit your business.
FAQs About Conversational AI for Customer Service
Yes, you can use AI for customer service to streamline operations and provide faster, more efficient support. AI-powered tools, such as chatbots and virtual assistants, handle routine inquiries, reducing the workload on human agents.
One of the best AI chatbots for customer service is Odin AI. It stands out for its ability to create custom AI models so businesses can provide personalized customer service while handling high volumes of inquiries.
AI chatbots are used in customer service to answer frequently asked questions, guide customers through troubleshooting, and assist with tasks like order tracking or booking appointments. They help businesses manage large volumes of inquiries quickly and efficiently, offering instant support 24/7.
The AI model for customer service typically combines natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning to understand and respond to customer inquiries. Platforms like Odin AI use tailored language models to provide accurate, context-aware responses that improve over time.
Rule-based chatbots follow a predefined set of responses and scripts, limiting their scope.
Conversational AI, on the other hand, uses natural language processing and machine learning to understand and respond to more complex and varied customer inputs, providing a more flexible and natural interaction.
Training a conversational AI involves feeding it relevant data, such as FAQs, past customer interactions, and industry-specific language. Over time, the AI learns from these inputs to improve accuracy.
Conversational AI tools like Odin AI allow you to input your data and create specialized agents to better match your business needs.
Yes, conversational AI can be employed in various functions such as sales, marketing, lead generation, and internal operations like HR or IT support. For example, AI can help recommend products, schedule appointments, qualify leads, or manage internal inquiries from employees.
Natural language understanding (NLU) is a key component of conversational AI that enables the system to interpret and understand customer language, including complex sentence structures, slang, and varying tones.
NLU makes AI more capable of grasping the context behind a customer’s question, which leads to more accurate and helpful responses.
