Automating Away Our Customer Relationships?
By: David Klippel
Tags: Customer Experience, Artificial Intelligence, Technology, Customer Service, Machine Learning

Automating Away Our Customer Relationships?

Finding the Balance in Customer Service

If you’re one of the more than two-thirds of US consumers that shopped online pre-COVID, then chances are you’ve dealt with customer service within the past few months. Whether that reason was to cancel travel plans or figure out new apparel return policies due to physical location closures, many of us have had to deal with the friction that is customer service. Most of my customer service interactions have involved chatbots, and it got me to thinking about this customer service shift that has occurred over the past several years. While there are some obvious advantages to using these customer service automation tools, these tools lack something that customers value: empathy and understanding. Consequently, organizations may be automating away critical touchpoints that can help retain customers and create loyalty.

‘I, Robot’ meets Customer Service

How We Got Here: Call Centers Considered Cost Centers

Many organizations see call centers as cost centers, and as such, they’ve put a lot of effort into building out AI-powered platforms that will handle customer inquiries in place of traditional service agents. You know these platforms, from the human-like IVR (Interactive Voice Response) that attempt to field your questions to the website chatbots that interact with you via text. Companies such as Amtrak and Verizon have implemented AI-based tools to help customers book trains or determine the best way to assist customers. In fact, Gartner predicted that by 2020, we can expect to see 85% of all customer interactions handled by AI without the involvement of a human support agent (This includes interactions beyond customer service such as purchasing via ecommerce flow rather than going through a sales agent). There’s no doubt that these tools provide value (see below for use cases), however there are still areas where live agents are needed to strengthen customer relationships.

Interactions With Customer Service Can Build Customer Loyalty

Customer service represents one of the few direct communication channels customers have with a company, and because of this, it’s often perceived as a proxy for the brand of the company. This is reflected in a global study by Microsoft, in which 96% of respondents say customer service is important in their choice of and loyalty to a brand. Businesses whose customers have alternatives and who depend on sales & marketing to serve those customers should use customer service touchpoints to build a long-term relationship with their customers. Using insurance as an example, where there are plenty of alternatives, I remain loyal to USAA because every time I call with an inquiry, I’m greeted by a friendly agent who goes above and beyond to make sure my questions are answered.

Expectations for customer service are increasing, and with its direct impacts to the quality of customer relationships, good customer service is a critical part of operations. Mikkel Svane, CEO of Zendesk (a customer service software company), says in his book Startupland that:

“Customer relationships matter more than ever, because your future revenue depends on those relationships lasting well beyond a single transaction…customer service interactions are becoming your primary means of creating true customer relationships.”

So why then are companies so adamant about automating away these opportunities to build relationships? They’re obsessed with the bottom-line, and every minute a customer agent spends on the phone is a minute that costs the company. However, companies should shift their mindset to look at customer calls as an opportunity to create value rather than a necessary evil that costs the company time and money. After all, positive customer service experiences can lead to repeat purchases, higher retention, and increased CLV.

With That Being Said…

Automation can still play an important role in the following areas. Notice that these use cases involve supporting a live agent or performing functions that live agents cannot do already:

Proactive Support — Anticipate areas where a customer would initiate a call (e.g., service outage, known defect, etc.) and preempt the call with a notification explaining the situation

Language Barriers — A platform supporting multiple languages enables a company to better serve a global customer base

Knowledge Assistance For Live Agents — Provide context for calls and key customer data to live agents for increased productivity and efficacy

Self-Service For Simple, Frequent Issues — Identify areas that lead to largest volumes for calls and automate the issues that are light touch and easy for customers to handle on their own (Customers are often quick to educate themselves on how to fix their own problems)

Call Routing — Leverage tools (e.g., natural-language processing) to route customer to appropriate agent best suited to answer their question

Social Media Scans — Track current customer sentiment and the health of a company’s brand using tools to scan the social media platforms where their customers are most present

So What’s The Right Balance?

While the use cases above present opportunities to supplement or automate customer service, there are limitations where a human agent should still be leveraged to provide a good experience for customers. For example, in areas where the service tools don’t answer the customer’s full question or cannot understand the customer’s question to begin with, companies should provide an effortless way to get in touch with a live agent (rather than the dreaded IVR menu prompt, can we get rid of this please!?). Additionally, some customers only want to work with live agents and should not be forced to go through an automated flow. For areas that are automated, companies should make sure that all channels (e.g., email, call, SMS, etc.) are integrated so that agents are aware of a customer’s entire service history and can provide better support.

The future of customer service is not exclusively AI powered chatbots, but AI powered tools that empower service agents to handle more complex inquiries requiring human touch while taking routine inquiries off the agent’s plate. The goal of adding automation to customer service is to not only cut costs, but also increase productivity and deliver a better experience.