If you want to succeed in business in 2024, you must provide a better customer experience than your competitors. This race is becoming increasingly intense because technologies are evolving rapidly, giving new tools for improving customer support. The buzz of the day today is AI, but when it comes to customer support, many entrepreneurs have reasonable doubts about this technology. While it has the potential to automate particular business processes, it may alienate customers, who in general feel cared for only when real people accompany them along their customer journey. At the same time, ignoring technologies today means getting out of business tomorrow. In this article, I will try to explain how to make AI help your customer support without making it rival human personnel.
Why AI is Not A Competitor
One of the most popular notions in public discourse nowadays is that AI threatens jobs in many business niches. Customer support is no different here because generative AI has capabilities that cover the core competencies of human customer support managers. AI, in the form of trained language models, can engage in dialogue with customers and give them responses that they might need. It may look as if AI can replace humans in this job, but this is not the case. At least for now. I will explain why.
Humans always get new roles when AI takes over
To begin with, there is nothing new about the alarmism that surrounds technological development. The emergence of every new technology triggers panic related to the replacement of humans in one or another business sector. However, people, just like technology, have the ability to adapt to new circumstances. In the case of the customer service industry, it has transformed dramatically in the past decades thanks to technological development. Interactive voice response (IVR), robotic process automation, and chatbots have all affected the work of customer support services but failed to exclude people from this process. Every time new tools replaced a specific function performed by a human, a new function requiring human involvement emerged. For example, when a new digital service emerges, human workers are needed to teach customers how to use it.
AI errors that need human oversight
Another reason that speaks against the idea of AI being a competitor to humans in customer support is that it, like every new technology, needs human oversight.
AI-powered chatbots are a very good illustration of this concept. The large language models (LLMs) behind bots are trained on data that may contain biases and generate errors. In customer care, such models can provide erroneous information to customers, who will take this wrongful response at face value. Speaking of biases, improperly trained LLMs can mistreat some categories of customers. Another concern is that LLMs can inadvertently reveal customer data or sensitive business information to people that this information is not destined to. This is why human oversight is needed for AI in customer service, especially in sensitive areas. While LLMs can carry out simplistic tasks on their own, premium services might require human engagement to reduce potential risks and ensure top customer care quality.
Why AI is a Partner
AI radically expands the capacities of existing technologies, offering a new level of automation. LLMs can recognize, classify, and create human-like text almost instantly, which means they can perform a wide range of customer service tasks. This translates into a significant increase in productivity. According to business consultancy BCG, AI implemented at scale can increase productivity by over 50%. The firm’s 2022 survey also states that 95% of global customer service leaders expected AI to serve their clients in one or another form within a three-year range.
The key perks of AI include high speed, scalability, and new opportunities for personalization.
Short response times
The main power of AI-powered systems is that they can process customer queries almost immediately. At the same time, they need no rest, days off, or vacations, which means they can operate around the clock. With no need to wait, customers can get their requests processed very quickly. When response times go down, customer satisfaction usually goes up.
Scalability in handling customer requests
AI can also be a remedy for the growth problem, which a vast majority of companies experience. With the increasing number of clients, the number of customer requests grows exponentially, which poses additional challenges to a company. AI can handle this increase without a drop in productivity or the need to hire additional employees.
Enhanced personalization
Another advantage of AI systems is that they can quickly comb through vast troves of customer data, including past interactions, purchase history, and personal preferences. With this information, AI-driven tools can offer customers services and products that will meet their exact expectations. A personalized approach to customer care always makes a client feel valued and understood. With AI, you have a very good chance to increase customer loyalty.
More time for complex problem-solving
Well-trained LLMs can be very good at carrying out repetitive tasks that human employees usually do. This means that humans can save time on routine tasks by prioritizing the ones that truly need human attention, for example, troubleshooting complex issues, maintaining support documentation, or developing customer engagement strategies.
AI in Action
The above-mentioned advantages of AI can manifest themselves through particular applications in various business scenarios. I will describe key AI applications that can improve customer service for businesses right now.
Automated email nurturing
Using AI, you can build email nurture streams that start engaging with newly onboarded customers. At first, they can explain how to use a product or a service. Some time later, they can get feedback and offer additional resources. The advantage of AI in this case is that it can create personalized emails that take into account the customer’s preferences, etc.
Tools for agents
AI can power various tools to analyze your customers’ pains, needs, and preferences. With these tools, human customer support managers can find the right approach for every customer, ensuring both high customer support quality and decision-making.
Dynamic customer onboarding
With their ability to provide answers and solutions to customers quickly and in a human-like manner, modern-day AI algorithms can work well with onboarding. They can easily replace complicated user manuals with interactive, dynamic support available every moment of the day.
Case of JetBlue
The solutions I described can be implemented in various forms, depending on the size of the size of the company and its goals. In some cases, businesses can use ready-to-use boxed AI solutions, while others require the development of proprietary LLMs.
For example, the US-based airline JetBlue opted for a packaged AI solution from technology vendor ASAPP. Using it, the airline automated and augmented its chat channel to allow the contact center to provide customers with support care. According to its own estimates, JetBlue was able to save an average of 280 seconds per chat, or 73,000 hours of manual laborin a quarter. This has eased pressure on human agents, giving them additional time for handle more complicated problems.
Summary
Contrary to many fears that circulate today, generative AI is not a competitor for people working in customer service. In fact, it can help human staff by solving standard problems and providing valuable data from customers to find optimal solutions for complex cases.
