How Can AI Fit Into Customer Service Call Centers Effectively?
Jennifer Lee is Chief Operating Officer at Intradiem. She’s also a yogi, a mother and a tenacious advocate for women in technology.
When I started my first job in a call center 20 years ago, people were already talking about how technology and automated processes were on the verge of replacing human agents. Today, with artificial intelligence (AI) blossoming in every direction, that familiar refrain about technology replacing human agents is stronger than ever.
Except that it won’t. Not yet, at least.
No matter how fast and smart technology becomes, it will never be a satisfying substitute for a human-to-human connection during high-stakes moments of truth in customer interactions. Automation is great when we need to schedule an appointment or make a payment. But when it comes to things like disputing a hospital bill, filing an insurance claim or committing to a long-term purchase agreement, there’s nothing like the real thing.
Companies Often Misuse AI Programs And Models
Unfortunately, some contact center leaders are repeating errors made with early chatbots by viewing the current generation of AI applications as straight-on replacements for human capabilities. Predictably, this is causing a power struggle between people and machines.
The Wall Street Journal (paywall) published an article that describes how some call centers are using machine-learning models to take decision-making responsibility away from agents. For example, they’re scanning conversations and recommending what agents should say or do next based on words and sentiments expressed by customers. But agents are pushing back.
Many agents interviewed said they value AI’s ability to access information quickly for decision making, but they object to being forced to use AI-generated scripts against their own judgment. They’d rather trust their own judgment when it comes to the inherently emotional aspect of customer service, especially since AI assistants can still make errors.
A quick perusal of the WSJ article’s comment section makes it clear that customers aren’t fans either. They want their problems solved with the nuance and empathy that only a human can provide.
AI Can Help Agents Improve, Not Replace Them
Technology really does affect the way human beings work. But customer service isn’t a zero-sum game where additional input from technology must come at the expense of human workers. It’s not about how to divide the pie; it’s about how to expand it.
Automation of key contact center processes in recent years has streamlined workflow efficiency, but it hasn’t improved agents’ ability to satisfy customers once they’re connected. Why? Because they’re still handling direct customer engagement and also processing and interpreting the inputs needed to resolve customer problems.
Rather than replacing human workers, technologies like ChatGPT and other AI applications will change the way some jobs are done. That’s not a threat. It’s an opportunity and a great one at that. The way to get the most from this tech in the contact center is to use AI’s uniquely powerful capabilities to assume the transactional and processing tasks it can do better than humans. This additional support can help agents get better and faster at delivering moments of truth.
In a fraction of the time it takes a human agent, AI can access and process huge pools of data, identify relevant patterns and predict the best solution to whatever problem is at hand. This collapses delay and inefficiency, retrieving and collating critical missing information and placing it at the agent’s disposal instantaneously. AI support liberates agents so they can remain focused on applying nuanced judgment—a uniquely human ability—based on the urgency of the situation, the comfort level of the customer and other variables.
AI Complements Human Intelligence
We all want our customer service experiences to be more efficient, and AI can help make it so without losing our primal need for compassion at high-stakes moments. We recognize the reassurance in a firm handshake, a steady gaze and the cadence of a confident voice. We know it when we feel it and when we don’t. AI may get there one day, but until it does, we should focus on leveraging its enormous potential to complement our finely honed intelligence.
As AI continues to mature, contact centers should keep routing transactional and computational tasks to chatbots while reserving more complex requests for human agents. These companies can provide stronger support to agents through applications specifically designed to streamline training, coaching, time and stress management and other steps to boost agents’ skills and well-being.
Customer service is a quintessentially human domain where promises to deliver outcomes or rectify mistakes are premised on a bedrock of faith, so people will always play a decisive role. Despite AI’s awesome ability to fill in the gaps of our deficiencies, there’s still no algorithm for faith. So its role in call centers should be a highly effective support tool that allows agents to better satisfy customers’ needs.
