The best online communities are those that offer consistent, helpful support to their members, keeping them engaged and their experience enjoyable. And while the growth of these communities is great, it becomes harder to maintain the standard of support that attracted users in the first place without scaling infrastructure.

Thankfully, AI-powered support tools can now bridge the gap between traditional customer service and the evolving needs of growing communities.

This software can ensure members receive timely answers for routine queries while human moderators can spend more time keeping a closer eye on content that’s posted.

Here, we’ll be breaking down the ways you can use AI to support your communities.

The comprehensive benefits of AI support

AI-driven customer support benefits both community members and the moderators. The support AI offers is available to people any time of day or night, meaning members can get their questions answered no matter what time it is, or if they live abroad and there’s a time difference to consider.

Moderators can ‘feed’ AI with all their existing resources - guides, answers to FAQs, documentation, etc - and will use that knowledge to answer the queries presented to it. AI support is best used to answer queries which are asked by community members, such as:

• “How do I reset my password?”
• “Can I change my username?”
• “What payment methods do you accept?”

It can handle these simple requests instantly, reducing the wait time of community members and improving satisfaction levels. Multilingual capabilities mean members who speak different languages can also be supported to the same level as native speakers without needing to hire additional staff.

Arguably, the most significant benefit of AI-driven support is the way it frees up human agents. Moderators can improve the level of support in the community by spending more time on complex queries while the routine requests are being handled.

Four practical uses of AI-driven support

1. It can suggest relevant company resources, such as blogs or videos, when members ask specific questions
2. AI can onboard new members to the community in a consistent, uniform way, ensuring all users are shown the same rules, features, and benefits.
3. By integrating it within your support workflow, AI can collect details, and should the query become more complex, it can pass it on to a human agent who is fully prepared to answer the question quickly.
4. AI can flag potentially harmful or rule-breaking content to human moderators without them having to scan through every conversation.
   

What to think about when choosing the right AI platform

With the benefits and value of AI platforms established, the question then pivots to which software you should select so that you maximise these advantages without having to drastically change your current community infrastructure.

Four things to keep in mind:

1. Any AI platform should support all the communication channels your community uses, be that Slack, Discord, or Telegram.
2. Integration with the content you currently use to answer queries should be simple so AI can pull information straightaway.
3. The platform should provide analytics so you can monitor usage and the accuracy of responses.
4. Easy set-up and friendly UI are both essential to ensure moderators and members can maximise the platform without needing prior technical knowledge.

The importance of balancing AI with a human touch

While AI-driven support comes with great benefits, it should be balanced with human support where needed. It shouldn't be a replacement for genuine interaction, but rather a time-saving tool that aids in enhancing the customer experience.

Not every issue can or should be handled by artificial intelligence. Some more sensitive queries will require a human agent who can provide empathy and nuanced judgments. When more typical support requests become more complex, AI should be configured to escalate these to a human moderator before frustration creeps in because the user isn’t getting the answer they require.

When AI is helping users, it must be created with a friendly, on-brand tone that reflects the brand. This helps to keep responses personal and less like chatting with a robot.

Finally, regularly reviewing AI performance to ensure it meets community expectations helps to keep that balance of AI and human interaction at the right level.

Some final things to consider

To get started, start by training your AI on your most commonly asked queries and feed it the essential resources before you scale its scope. This helps to maintain quality as you grow the AI’s understanding.

Monitor the results closely to ensure answers remain accurate and on-brand as it's responding to questions in the first few days. Why not bring your community into the learning process, too? Encourage users to give feedback on the AI support, after all, they’re the ones who will be using it.

AI-driven support can enhance communities across a number of areas, and the more it's maintained, the more accurate and helpful it will be to your members and moderators.

‍