Artificial intelligence has seen a meteoric rise in popularity in the last few months, dominating headlines everywhere. Managed service providers may find it daunting to adopt the fast-evolving technology, but with the right strategy it can offer many benefits.
To better serve internal and external demands, MSPs are now investigating how they can most effectively integrate ChatGPT and other generative AI technologies into both IT management and unified communications and collaboration (UCC) technologies and tools.
Here are three key areas MSPs can focus on now to get ahead tomorrow:
1. Reducing the Burden on IT
A recent industry report from Wingman and Zomentum found that 77% of MSPs feel their current workloads are at or over capacity, making the ability to be productive increasingly challenging. AI tools like ChatGPT can support productivity by creating automation workflows for everyday tasks and providing fast access to information. It can also give customers self-service options, enabling them to manage IT tickets and project tasks. For IT service desk teams in particular, AI can save a significant amount of time and money by automating repetitive and common activities like auto-scheduling, task creation, task resets, or simple troubleshooting.
In addition, the use of ChatGPT can help MSPs predict IT issues before they occur. This leads to less downtime caused by IT maintenance and helps to prevent service disruptions. In turn, it creates more trust between MSPs and their customers. Team members can also collaborate with ChatGPT to automate tasks, provide customer self-service, and manage trouble tickets and project tasks.
2. Streamlined Customer Service
Data shows that businesses are looking to invest more in customer experience technology as competition for customers continues to grow. In fact, a recent survey by GoTo found 66% of respondents plan to spend more on customer experience technology in 2023 than they did in 2022.
AI will play a major role here, as it impacts how businesses interact with and communicate with their customers. This is especially true as AI-powered chatbots become more prevalent and generative AI platforms like ChatGPT are integrated into UCC solutions. MSPs can take advantage of these technological advances to transform their customer service.
The use of ChatGPT specifically can help MSPs deliver better customer service by giving quick responses to simple or common questions. In these instances, AI serves as a supplement to agents, handling basic questions that don’t require a human touch. This frees up customer care teams to prioritize more meaningful tasks and complex customer needs.
3. Improved Team Collaboration
In addition to the value AI can bring to customer experience, it presents the opportunity to improve internal collaboration. According to a recent study from Zippia, more than 50% of American workers believe that collaboration is essential to their jobs—they understand how crucial it is to be able to share information, plan and manage activities, and monitor project progress in real-time. Tools like ChatGPT can aid in these processes by automating simple tasks and gathering information from internal systems like email, chat, and internal databases. With quick access to the information they need, workers can collaborate more effectively.
Team members can also leverage AI to aid in brainstorming sessions and generate new ideas for discussion topics. When these solutions are integrated seamlessly into the tech stacks that employees already use every day, it makes their adoption simple.
Staying on Top of Tech Trends
We can see from the examples above how important it is for all businesses that provide technological services, like MSPs, to ensure they’re employing the most cutting-edge technology. AI can make teamwork, communication, and service delivery simple for everyone. While it may seem daunting, implementing AI tools can be simple and reap many rewards for MSPs.
DAMON COVEY is senior vice president, head of product, at GoTo, the company making IT management, support, and business communication easy.
