No single area of an organization provides a better foundation to demonstrate generative AI success than customer service.
The interplay between AI tools, human agents, and customers offers CEOs a distinctive opportunity to generate value while building operational proficiency in new ways of engaging.
The IBM Institute for Business Value has identified three things every leader needs to know:
- Customer service has leapfrogged other functions to become CEOs’ #1 generative AI priority.
- 85% of execs say generative AI will be interacting directly with customers in the next two years.
- Piloting generative AI in customer service can speed a successful enterprise-wide rollout.
And three things every leader needs to do right now:
- Turn human agents into heroes by giving them generative AI tools.
- Use generative AI to personalize customer interactions like never before.
- Exploit successes and learnings in customer service.
What You Need To Know
Customer Service Has Leapfrogged Other Functions To Become CEOs’ #1 Generative AI Priority
Customer service has jumped to the top of the generative AI implementation list, cited by more CEOs than any other organizational function or service.
Executives recognize the power of generative AI to deliver transformation in customer service. They anticipate a long list of benefits, with shortened response times and improved overall customer experience at the top.
But the path to all benefits starts with agents.
Nearly two-thirds of executives (63%) say that by the end of 2023 they will have already invested in generative AI use cases to serve agents directly, including deploying generative AI for agent training, and enabling agents to interact directly with tech applications to deliver improved instant assistance.
What You Need To Do
Turn Human Agents Into Heroes by Giving Them Generative AI Tools
Freeing up human agents so they can pivot to more personalized customer engagement—where it matters most—is one of the most immediate ways organizations can offer enhanced value to customers, differentiate their brand, and begin transforming customer service from a cost center into a revenue accelerator.
- Prioritize use cases that improve the agent experience. Obviously, automate laborious manual tasks. And let agents tap generative AI to answer questions about products and services and offer recommendations.
- Let generative AI manage the standard customer interactions and relay the more complex and sensitive queries to your human agents.
- Don’t play “hide-and-seek” with your customers: Tell them when they are engaging with a generative-AI bot. And let them request human assistance at will, no questions asked.
What You Need To Know
85% of Execs Say Generative AI Will Be Interacting Directly With Customers in the Next Two Years
It may be tempting to deploy generative AI with customers quickly, but it’s essential that leaders understand customer pain points generative AI can resolve best, and apply what they learn from agent interactions.
What You Need To Do
Use Generative AI To Personalize Customer Interactions Like Never Before
To conquer high risks and capture high rewards in customer service, this tech deployment should be about listening, testing, and then capitalizing.
- Invest in direct engagement between customers and generative AI, but don’t do it blindly. Start by determining which challenges are most likely to pose the most risk for your organization and which generative AI use cases can be designed to mitigate those pitfalls.
- Use generative AI as a research tool to collect and analyze sentiment-based metrics for each customer service interaction. Stay mindful of what differentiates your brand and how AI can enhance what makes your organization unique.
- Use generative AI not just for interactions and engagement, but for driving innovation. Use it to mine new opportunities with customers and track customer service success to see how automated applications influence sales and customer loyalty across the customer lifecycle.
What You Need To Know
Piloting Generative AI in Customer Service Can Speed a Successful Enterprise-Wide Rollout
Generative AI’s pairing of automation with humanity means customer service becomes a proof of concept, demonstrating to the rest of the enterprise how new tech tools can improve employee satisfaction, impact customer engagement, and drive returns.
What You Need To Do
Exploit Successes and Learnings in Customer Service
Because generative AI is as much about your people as it is about technology, the very visible realm of customer service will serve to motivate change across the enterprise.
- Re-orient customer service from problem resolver to innovation hub. Foster outcomes-based generative AI experimentation that can be measured, optimized, and scaled.
- Shout-out generative AI successes and share exemplary outcomes at individual and functional levels.
- Challenge and motivate your workforce to explore how generative AI can help in their day-to-day work—beyond the initial use cases. Create gamified opportunities for individual contributors to pitch use cases that can spark new ideas and applications.
The statistics informing the insights in this article are sourced from three proprietary surveys conducted by the IBM Institute for Business Value in collaboration with Oxford Economics regarding perspectives around generative AI. The first survey was answered by 200 US-based CEOs, while the second was answered by a broader range of 369 executives across the US, UK, Australia, Singapore, Germany and India. Both surveys were fielded in April–May 2023. The third survey was answered by 108 executives in 18 countries and was fielded in July 2023.
