Date: July 17, 2020
Category: Blog
Finding the balance between AI solutions and human customer service can be a fine line to toe.
Yes, these solutions can be helpful to enhance the customer experience (for example, as a quick helping-hand with more simple queries, such as track my parcel, where’s my order, pay my bill etc.), and your customer service team or provider should be able to facilitate a blended approach.
But, a lot of times customer queries can be so unique and complex that AI bots and automated services simply won’t cut it.
With that said, here are 3 of the most important benefits of using human customer service…
Mitigating Customer Frustration
A 2018 study from CGS found that beyond simple customer support, many consumers still prefer human Agents to chatbots.
Nearly 50 percent of UK respondents and around 40 percent of US respondents said they’d prefer a person.
In addition, the study found that over 50% of all UK respondents over the age of 25 felt concerned that companies were moving too quickly to “all chatbot” customer service, making it harder to speak to human representatives when needed.
When customers wish/need to speak to a human and are unable to, this causes major frustration- and with customer service being a key factor for consumers, it’s important to provide your customers with the best experience possible.
Reliability
Although technology has progressed so much over the last decade, it’s still not 100% reliable. There may be unplanned downtime, or perhaps some technical difficulties or challenges with the queries being asked of the chatbots/automated solutions.
Having a blended approach- with both human, professional Customer Service Agents, as well as AI solutions- offers an extra layer of reliability.
Qualitative Feedback
With Customer Service Agents speaking directly with customers in a conversational way, you’re able to harvest qualitative data that may not have been so accessible or as easily filtered through AI solutions alone; with AI delivering on a more quantitative front.
But this qualitative data is likely to include important information, straight from the customers themselves, with useful and tangible feedback that can be acted upon in order to pro-actively improve the customer journey and experience, and ultimately both attract and retain customers.
Do you need help with your customer experience? Simply get in touch to find out how we can help.
