AI Customer Support Glossary

All the key terms you need to know about AI agents, support automation, and customer service technologies.

A

AI Agent

An AI agent is an autonomous software entity that perceives its environment, makes decisions, and takes actions to achieve specific goals without continuous human intervention.

C

Chatbot vs AI Agent

Chatbots follow predefined scripts and decision trees to respond to user inputs, while AI agents use reasoning capabilities to autonomously understand context, make decisions, and execute actions.

Conversational AI

Conversational AI refers to technologies that enable computers to engage in natural, human-like dialogue, understanding context, maintaining conversation history, and generating relevant responses.

CSAT Score

CSAT (Customer Satisfaction Score) is a metric that measures how satisfied customers are with a specific interaction or overall service, typically collected through post-interaction surveys.

Customer Support Automation

Customer support automation uses AI and technology to handle customer inquiries, resolve issues, and complete service tasks without manual human intervention.

E

Escalation is the process of transferring a customer support interaction from one level of support to a higher level — from AI to human, or from junior to senior agent — when the current handler cannot resolve the issue.

F

First Response Time

First Response Time (FRT) measures the elapsed time between when a customer submits a support request and when they receive the first meaningful response from the support team.

I

Intent Detection

Intent detection is the process of identifying the purpose or goal behind a user's message, allowing AI systems to route requests and trigger appropriate actions.

K

Knowledge Base

A knowledge base is a centralized repository of information — articles, FAQs, policies, documentation — that AI agents and customers can access to find answers to questions and resolve issues.

M

Multi-Agent Orchestration

Multi-agent orchestration is the coordination of multiple specialized AI agents working together to handle complex tasks, where each agent focuses on a specific domain or function.

N

Natural Language Processing

Natural Language Processing (NLP) is a branch of AI that enables computers to understand, interpret, and generate human language in a meaningful way.

O

Omnichannel Support

Omnichannel support provides a seamless, unified customer service experience across all communication channels — chat, email, phone, social media, and messaging apps — with shared context between them.

R

RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation)

RAG is a technique that enhances AI responses by retrieving relevant information from a knowledge base before generating an answer, ensuring responses are grounded in accurate, up-to-date data.

Resolution Rate

Resolution rate measures the percentage of customer support tickets that are successfully resolved, either on first contact or within a defined timeframe.

S

Self-Service Portal

A self-service portal is a customer-facing platform where users can find answers, troubleshoot issues, and complete tasks independently without contacting support agents.

Sentiment Analysis

Sentiment analysis is an NLP technique that identifies and classifies the emotional tone behind text, determining whether a message expresses positive, negative, or neutral sentiment.

SLA (Service Level Agreement)

A Service Level Agreement (SLA) is a formal commitment between a service provider and customer that defines expected performance metrics like response times, resolution times, and uptime guarantees.

T

Ticket Routing

Ticket routing is the process of automatically directing customer support requests to the most appropriate agent, team, or AI workflow based on the ticket's content, priority, and required expertise.

V

Voice AI

Voice AI combines speech recognition, natural language understanding, and speech synthesis to enable AI agents to handle phone conversations with customers in real-time.

W

Workflow Automation

Workflow automation uses technology to execute repetitive business processes automatically based on predefined rules and triggers, reducing manual effort and increasing consistency.

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