How You Can Build an AI Helpdesk to Reap Big Benefits

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See what an AI helpdesk is all about, how to quickly set one up, and the main advantages you’ll enjoy once you’ve deployed these support tools.

Artificial intelligence has experienced a meteoric rise in popularity in the business world. One survey from McKinsey shows that while only 55% of businesses leveraged AI in 2023, by late 2024, 78% had gotten in on this trend.

So how are today’s businesses leveraging this new technology? Some are using it for design and engineering, others for analytics, and still more are relying on generative AI to help automate repetitive tasks that can eat away at the average employee’s time.

On the human resources side of things, AI helpdesks are becoming popular for their ability to provide real-time assistance while easing the burden of repetitive questions on support personnel. Even better, if you’re using the right platform, it’s incredibly easy to set up an AI helpdesk that can not only answer routine questions, but also handle ticket routing for more complex problems that require human intervention.

Want to learn more? In this article, we’ll show you what an AI helpdesk is all about, how to quickly set one up on the RapidBee platform, and the main advantages you’ll enjoy once you’ve deployed these support tools.

What Is an AI Helpdesk?

AI helpdesk: setting up RapidBee's New AI Assistant

An AI helpdesk uses generative artificial intelligence and natural language processing to provide assistance — or sometimes customer support — to employees or customers. Most AI helpdesks start with a chatbot that allows individuals to ask questions and get instant answers. Chatbots typically leverage a knowledge base in the form of documents that you upload so the AI can search through them to find relevant answers.

In many cases, an AI agent is enough to provide the assistance that is required, but sometimes people run into complex issues that require help from human agents. In these instances, an AI-driven service desk should be equipped with a smart ticketing system that automatically creates a support ticket, then routes it to the relevant member of your support team.

That’s the basics on how an AI service desk works — but what kinds of requests can these tools address? There are quite a few:

  • Use an AI chatbot to answer benefits, payroll, or company policy questions commonly asked of human resources team members.
  • Provide IT support with advanced AI tools that can offer troubleshooting steps.
  • Create a facilities management system where employees can notify the chatbot of needed repairs or service requests so that the chatbot can create support tickets.
  • Upload health and safety polices so that employees can easily access information.
  • Provide your chatbot with knowledge base articles pertaining to particular roles or job functions so that new employees can reference it during the onboarding process. 
  • Create a customer-facing chatbot that can improve the customer experience by answering product questions or solving customer issues.

As you can see, there are many use cases for an AI helpdesk — and all of them will help you streamline support operations by addressing either employee or customer needs.

The Advantages of AI-Powered Helpdesks

AI helpdesk: customer service employees happily working

Now that you know the basics on how AI helpdesk software works, it’s time to dive into the advantages of these tools. Here at RapidBee, we specialize in AI helpdesk solutions that provide real-time, accurate support for common human resources inquiries — and below, we’ll show you how our tools will help you optimize workflows across the board.

1. Reduced Response Times

One of the main advantages to using generative AI to provide self-service support is that it drastically reduces response times. It allows you to take a proactive approach to employee support: People can ask questions and get instant, accurate answers on a 24/7 basis. There’s no need for employees to wait for office hours or for busy support agents to work their way through dozens of tickets.

Even better, reduced response times will in turn lead to faster resolution times for most questions and issues. Fewer overall tickets will allow support team members to handle support requests more efficiently. 

2. Streamlined Support Ticket Management

AI helpdesk: RapidBee's Tickets page

Another big advantage to using AI for your helpdesk is that it will provide you with a streamlined way to automate escalations and manage support tickets. On the RapidBee platform, for example, machine learning tools are able to recognize when requests require support that the chatbot can’t handle. 

When this happens, the system automatically converts the inquiry into a support ticket. All employee requests, whether questions for HR or IT service requests, are aggregated into a single queue where AI-powered routing policies take over to categorize tickets and assign each out to the right person for timely ticket resolution. This helps you to streamline support processes and reduce delays caused by mis-routed tickets.

On top of that, RapidBee’s ticketing system offers time-driven automation tools. This means that you can set criteria to initiate, advance, and close tickets automatically while keeping everyone informed via automated email updates at every stage of the process. 

3. Improved User Experiences

An AI-driven helpdesk can increase employee engagement by as much as 33% — and that’s because it improves experiences for end users in several key ways: 

  • Modern AI capabilities include natural language processing, which allows the AI to deliver human-like responses rather than the kind of canned responses that are notorious for being unhelpful. 
  • Round-the-clock service delivery means that the average employee has instant access to answers for all of their FAQs. 
  • Since chatbots minimize the load on support teams, employees can get faster responses to complex problems, which reduces the frustration associated with long wait times, improves productivity, and improves engagement metrics like employee satisfaction.

4. Increased Productivity

AI-powered helpdesks can also increase productivity by as much as 38%. The benefits are twofold. As we’ve noted, employees who need answers can get them instantly — and this lets them resolve issues and get back to work quickly.

When it comes to human resources or IT service management (ITSM), team members who would normally respond to inquiries are freed from repetitive tasks like answering simple questions. They can focus more of their time and efforts solving the complex problems that require human decision-making. 

For businesses this translates not only to improved productivity, but also cost savings, too. You’ll have far fewer labor hours devoted to downtime or troubleshooting on simple, routine tasks.

Build a Robust AI Helpdesk With RapidBee

With RapidBee, it’s easy to build an AI helpdesk that can handle a variety of employee needs. All you need to do is upload the right documentation — and our AI tools can handle it from there. Employees can ask questions, get instant responses. For those tricky issues that require a human touch, our smart ticketing system will automatically generate support tickets and route them to the right team members.

The advantages of this kind of AI support are enormous: reduced response times, streamlined support services, improved user experiences, and increased productivity.

Want to learn more? Request a trial so that you can get started with our advanced AI tools.