The 10 brands with the best customer service aren’t who you’d expect
Brands hoping to provide the best customer service for their industry need to answer two key questions about their audience before creating a strategy.
The role of artificial intelligence in our world — how it can help or possibly hinder our potential — is an often polarizing topic. Opinions are mixed, especially when it comes to a customer support model, which must satisfy a demanding and ever-changing audience.
During a recent panel, we asked experts from Lenovo, Google Cloud, and SAP: When it comes to customers needing help, which model works best, AI or humans?
Not surprisingly, opinions were mixed, although this lack of consensus certainly hasn’t curtailed the myriad ways AI has woven itself into our lives, including customer support. Today, we interact with AI in most of our digital interactions, including online shopping, ridesharing, and many other touchpoints.
Customer support model: An evolution
Customer support hit its stride with the advent of the telephone. People no longer needed to travel a substantial distance to obtain information or exchange a faulty product.
This scalable communication model also made it easier for people to share positive and negative vendor feedback. Consumers had the power to impact a company’s reputation, and businesses began to pay attention to how well they served their customers.
Since then, we’ve evolved to an omnichannel world where consumers can access support services via telephone, websites, social media, live chat, and other platforms. Today, we as customers interact with humans and AI interchangeably—and based on what our experts had to say, this is how we like it.When AI shines in customer support
For many people, the best customer support model involves engaging with a human. But there are often scenarios when we want to short-circuit the experience. We’re in a hurry. We don’t want to engage. We need simple instructions, contact info, and other easy answers—and we want them fast without necessarily putting effort into being polite.
This is where AI serves humans well, quickly providing the customer with exactly what they want. The customer is happy. So is the human agent who doesn’t have to suffer through the same mundane questions all day, every day. Instead, they can focus on thornier customer issues where a human touch is invaluable.
“AI allows us to focus on what humans are good at–relating to each other, interacting, being a sympathetic ear when someone is really angry.” — Richard Mooney, VP Product Management, SAP Analytics Cloud.The efficiencies of this support model are meaningful. Along with happy customers and engaged employees, diverting a significant portion of calls to a virtual agent results in substantial business cost savings. It’s a win-win-win.
Making a human connection: Customer support model
Putting aside the issues of unconscious bias and other aspects of AI that remain a work-in-progress, there is an emotional quotient lacking in AI that is foundational to authentic human interactions.
Relying solely on data and logic, AI falls short on empathy and emotion. Without these human elements, the system is incapable of replicating the ineffable human factor. When a customer interaction strays into this realm, we train AI to pass the customer to a human.
“Merging humans and AI agents into a single experience across multiple touchpoints is the magic combination.” — Ewa Duerr, Head of Product Strategy & Operations, Google Cloud Artificial Intelligence.For example, a grandparent orders a gift for their grandchild, but it doesn’t arrive. Although a virtual agent will handle the logistical side of the support case effectively, a human could provide emotional support and empathy.
Perhaps the human agent has children of their own and can truly commiserate with the customer. This connection elevates the experience in a manner that is beyond AI. Sometimes a customer needs more than just an answer.
2021 customer service trends: Doubling down, post-pandemic
2020 put the spotlight on customer service as businesses dealt with spikes in service demand and dramatically different consumer patterns. After a tumultuous year, what are the customer service trends to watch in 2021?
Better service begins before the call center
Exceptional service starts well before a customer contacts the call center. A positive experience also involves shipping the right product, free of defects, to the right place at the right time—a process that’s ripe for potential errors.
AI leverages video analytics, sensors, cameras, and other internet of things (IoT) components to support human workers, providing them with real-time data to speed the fulfillment of customer orders and ensure order accuracy.
In a warehouse filled with thousands of pallets, AI will quickly locate the right one. It can spot defects that the human eye would miss. Inaccuracies in shipping addresses and other order information are flagged and corrected before an order is shipped. All of these efficiencies are possible when humans and AI work together.
“Quality assurance must be a collaborative effort between humans and AI. Human oversight remains, but AI is a key factor in the ability to operate at scale.” — Dr. Ajay Dholakia, CTO, SAP Alliance, Lenovo Infrastructure Solutions Group Principal Engineer, Chief Technologies for Software and Solutions Development.Shared intelligence
Ultimately, our experts agree that when humans and AI work collaboratively, the potential is truly endless. By combining AI’s powerful data and logic with the comprehension and compassion of human beings, we will continue to exceed our expectations.
Yes, the road ahead will be bumpy. Many aspects of AI—and technology overall—are unknown and require much more thought and consideration. Fortunately, we can leverage the very technology we seek to understand to help us on this journey.
You can watch the video of the entire panel discussion here.
