AI is transforming customer support by making service faster, smarter, and available around the clock. But before investing in a platform like Unless, it’s crucial to understand the financial impact—both the costs and the returns. ROI (Return on Investment) and TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) calculators are essential tools for measuring the value and sustainability of your AI investment.
Key metrics for measuring AI success
To gauge the impact of AI in customer support, track these primary metrics—many of which are available in the Unless dashboard:
- Deflection rate: The percentage of customer conversations handled by AI without reaching a human agent. Higher deflection means less workload for your team and quicker responses.
- AI resolution rate: The share of conversations the AI manages meaningfully, without escalation or fallback to default answers.
- First contact resolution (FCR): The percentage of issues resolved by AI in the first interaction.
Out-of-hours support: The number of customer conversations handled by AI outside regular business hours, highlighting the value of 24/7 service. - Average resolution time (support team): The average time it takes for human agents to fully resolve tickets, which should decrease as AI takes on more work.
Secondary metrics like average handling time (AHT AI), escalation rate, and customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores offer further insight into efficiency and customer experience.
Understanding the cost side: TCO with Unless
When you choose a SaaS AI provider like Unless, your total cost of ownership is clear and predictable.
What Unless covers:
- Software, platform, infrastructure, and hosting
- Security, compliance, and regular maintenance
- Standard and some custom integrations
- Data cleaning, knowledge gap detection, and content suggestions
- Staff training and technical support
What you manage:
- Subscription or usage fees
- Initial setup and customization
- Additional custom integrations (if needed)
- Data selection and ongoing oversight
- Content updates and performance monitoring
Step-by-step guide to calculating ROI
- Ticket deflection for prospects:
Calculate the percentage of website visitors who resolve issues via AI without submitting a ticket.
Formula:
Deflection Rate = (Tickets deflected / Total visitor inquiries) × 100
Example:
40% deflection of 1,000 tickets/month at €10 per ticket = €4,000 monthly savings. - Ticket deflection for existing clients:
Measure deflection for logged-in users in your product.
Example:
20% deflection of 2,000 in-product inquiries/month = €4,000 monthly savings. - Handling time with internal co-pilots:
Calculate time saved per ticket when agents use AI.
Example:
Saving 4 minutes per ticket on 2,200 tickets/month at €25/hr = €3,667 monthly savings. - First-year ROI calculation:
Add up your monthly savings and subtract annual costs (subscription, setup, staff time).
Example:- Total monthly savings: €11,667
- Total annual costs: €41,588
- ROI = ((€140,000 - €41,588) / €41,588) × 100 = 237% ROI in year one.
- Ongoing ROI:
As your business grows and the AI scales, savings increase while ongoing management effort decreases, leading to even higher ROI in subsequent years (e.g., over 1,000% in year two).
Beyond the numbers: Additional benefits
- Streamlined documentation: Automated article updates and knowledge gap detection reduce manual work.
- Faster onboarding: AI captures and organizes team expertise, making training easier and preserving knowledge.
- Continuous improvement: AI-driven analytics highlight emerging topics and customer pain points for proactive support enhancements.
Conclusion
ROI and TCO calculators provide a clear, data-driven foundation for your AI investment decision. With Unless, you can expect measurable cost savings, improved efficiency, and scalable support—backed by transparent costs and robust analytics. Use these tools to build your business case and unlock the full value of AI in customer support.
