Why AI adoption will lag behind AI innovation until more trust is established

A partnership between humans and digital tools has existed since even before the invention of the internet, continually delivering an improved standard of customer experience at every engagement point. So why is the attitude toward partnerships between AI and humans different, shifting towards a discussion of mutual exclusivity?

Fear, driven by a lack of understanding and trust in technology, and often those creating it, has made customers and business leaders hesitant to engage. Speculation around AI’s capability to replace humans entirely has also played into this reaction. Even so, interest in AI’s capability to revolutionize everything from writing emails to coding applications has kept the buzz around it sustained for years. Businesses that have successfully adopted AI are seeing success already, but AI adoption will likely lag behind AI innovation until the AI industry becomes more trusted.

Research has shown that when customers deem a conversation to be embarrassing, discussing a personal issue like a medical problem for example, they prefer engaging with chatbots, citing the lack of potential judgment as a key factor. However, for other industries and use cases, customers are receptive to live human engagement, especially when empathy from a fellow human improves the substance of the interaction.

Even as the business landscape changes with the implementation of artificial intelligence in areas such as operations, customer experience, and marketing, customer expectations won’t. Brand trust, a simple user experience, and options for both product and support have long been at the heart of outstanding customer experiences. While each business needs time to determine the proper blend of humans and AI to optimize their unique offering and deliver a red-carpet experience for customers, here are three reasons AI and humans working together is the best approach across all sectors.

The Age of AI Gives Customers What They Want: True Options

While first-generation chatbots technically provided customers with alternatives to lengthy call center queues, in reality, they weren’t very helpful, serving mostly as a small step beyond a static FAQ page. Today, conversational AI has reached a point where virtual agents can answer a vast majority of customer inquiries but can also assist with account-specific actions. Some may use these benefits of AI as a reason to start minimizing the role of live agents, but instead, customer service teams should look to provide customers with options that suit their needs depending on inquiry type.

In some industries, for example insurance, customers lean towards engaging with AI along different points of the customer journey. They opt for AI in claims management, while still preferring to talk with a live agent in situations that may benefit from a more empathetic touch such as underwriting. By integrating virtual agents into the existing customer journey, rather than simply tasking AI with every aspect of the customer journey, enterprises can provide customers with a suite of engagement options that meet their wants depending on the context.

It’s Not Just for the Customers

Those who aren’t quite ready for customer-facing AI can still provide benefits to the customer journey by implementing it elsewhere within the organization. By starting off with the internal deployment of AI, businesses can retain more control over what ultimately ends up being shared with customers, while still reaping the benefits of automation and improved scalability. While the number of digital voice assistants globally has risen from 4.2 to 8.4 billion over the last 4 years, only half of businesses today utilize call center software or a call center knowledge base. According to the same Digital Customer Experience report by CMSWire, 24% of those who aren’t currently employing this technology anticipate doing so over the next two years, but this onboarding will be gradual.

In practice, what does this look like? Providing live service agents with virtual counterparts retains a human as the stop-gap between content delivered by AI and the customer. At the same time, it supercharges the live agent’s capabilities, allowing them to tap into AI’s superior search capabilities, pulling up customer information and more personalized solutions to customer problems. With 76% of consumers becoming frustrated with businesses when they don’t experience personalized interactions, the potential for AI to transform service teams and keep customers happy cannot be overstated.

The Changing Role of Customer Support

Change will inevitably occur when any business implements AI, but that doesn’t necessarily have to lead to negative results for current employees. Some leaders have already discovered that implementing AI has allowed them to retain and increase headcount, especially for small businesses that are on the path to scale.

When it comes to customer support, a vast majority of performance-based metrics today are based on response and queue times, two areas where AI can easily outperform a live agent. Businesses that succeed in the next era of customer support will realize that instead of just replacing live agents with AI, metrics are what need to be replaced. As AI offloads a majority of simple to moderately complex interactions, live support agents can utilize their increased capacity to focus on high-touch customer interactions, focusing more on the quality of customer experience, rather than the quantity of customers they engage.

By refocusing customer service agents towards customer relationship management, rather than queue clearing, the opportunity to truly hyper-personalize the customer journey can be achieved. For example, support agents can follow up with customers via customized follow-up emails that include personalized details about their call, rather than relying on an automated email template that allows them to dive back to clearing their inquiry queue.

Keeping Humans In the Loop

There’s no doubt that conversational and generative AI technology is on pace to deliver virtual agents that are closely matched to their human counterparts, but that doesn’t mean humans should stay out of the customer journey. There is no replacement for the human touch, especially when a customer’s support needs go beyond the capabilities of a virtual agent.

There is something to be said about the “human touch” in customer service, and organizations that deliver a seamless, white-glove, experience for every customer by blending AI and humans into one team will unlock a new level of customer satisfaction.

Editor’s Note: