Much is debated around which industries and job roles will be impacted by the introduction of artificial intelligence technology. Customer service, for instance, is often cited as one of the most affected fields. The majority of the AI discourse within the contact center scope has not centered on the value creation aspect of customer experience enhancement. Instead, the focus has mostly been on cost efficiencies. This is usually the reasoning for the assumptions suggesting that x percentage of customer service jobs will be eliminated by AI by x date.
Cost-Minimization Strategy and Its Consequences
The story focusing on replacing jobs is compelling when evaluating the state of contact centers today. As previously noted, a large number of companies still perceive customer service as a cost center. As a result, agents are bound by strict procedures and workflows, which compel them to act in a robotic manner.
In this situation, some consider replacing these “human robots” with automated bots to be a rational approach towards cost reduction. Adopting this strategy as a company policy during the past year is, according to some, making customer service increasingly awful.
An inordinate number of companies seem to have underestimated the functionality of AI, making it harder to reach a live person. Traditional tactics such as yelling “representative” or pressing “0” reportedly fail to work consistently. Furthermore, chatbots tend to ineffectively escalate complicated issues.
The Importance of Human Interaction
In certain situations, self-service tools can be of use. As the source observes, a combination of unique scenarios and intricate problems will always require live human assistance. Great support teams are differentiated by critical soft skills such as empathy.
These abilities are things that artificial intelligence cannot yet replicate effectively. Some firms focused on customer service are said to be recognizing the dire consequences of implementing AI technology for the sole purpose of cutting costs without taking into account how it affects the customers.
Klarna’s example and balanced approach.
Klarna is cited as an example illustrating potential and pitfalls. Reportedly, the company received a lot of accolades for implementing AI technology that replaced the work done by 700 agents. However, the company had to realize the importance of human assistance when, over the last year, Klarna’s customer service was reported to have gone down the drain.
Their CEO allegedly spoke about how they need to balance the efficiency of costs and the experience provided to customers. They are not changing their AI investment, but they’ve come to understand the importance of balancing costs associated with savings and those associated with improved customer experience.
AI Applications Enhancing Human Efforts
It has been claimed that the most effective uses of AI in support services help make contact centers more productive (cost savings) and simultaneously enable great help to be rendered (customer loyalty, long-term positive growth). Such customer-focused AI applications are numerous.
Persona-Based Custom Support
One of the most important ones is customizing support concerning understanding customers’ personas and their specific needs, tailoring support per identified personas. Customers differ in preferences. A customer-focused AI application is assigning customers to personas based on interactions to provide the right support level. This includes routing “Danny” to self-serve/virtual support; “Julie” and “Gary” to“ live—“Julie” to tiered support; and “Carla” to self-service with easy human transfer. This solution achieves cost-saving objectives by correctly routing and meeting service expectations.
Automated Service Recovery
Scaling closed-loop service recovery has another purpose. Customers like to give feedback actively for problems and issues that need solving. Follow-up—checking back is hard to scale due to resource/time constraints. A customer-focused AI application automates proactive follow-up reach to upscale. AI marks at-risk customers and auto-generates an acknowledgment, sending a number for further assistance. Feedback is welcomed by most customers who feel acknowledged. Those needing live support are catered to. Reportedly, customer experience (CX) is improved efficiently due to AI.
Resolution of anticipated issues done before any interaction corresponds with another use case. Businesses are able to track all information AI analyzes regarding the Experian contact reason. This information allows an automated motion to be performed, which eliminates the contact. For instance, in airlines, if a high-value customer happens to miss their connecting flight, AI might spontaneously provide an auto-sent meal and hotel voucher to the customer. This resolves the customer’s problems while in turn resolving the company’s support concerns.
Alongside the above, potential solutions extend way beyond just the above AI use case in the existing resources, allotting opportunities for improving both entities. Saving the executives relies on blaming a single-track mind approach towards concentrating only on short-term expenditures. Companies understanding the distinct advantage of human assistance and investing in AI to augment them instead of helping people work hold a strong competitive position to dominate the market while maintaining a stellar reputation.
