New agents of change

For customer service departments navigating the new world of AI, the popular trope about technology seems to apply: “The future is already here. It’s just not evenly distributed yet.”

Compared to other core business departments such as marketing and IT, customer service has been slow to use and trust AI. Yet those that are embracing AI are seeing eye-opening payoffs: 40% of customer service employees at those companies say that AI is already “invaluable” to managing their workloads. 

That’s one of several key insights from Freshworks’ latest Global AI Workplace Report, which surveyed more than 4,000 knowledge workers across multiple industries and seven countries about how they’re using AI on the job, and what benefits they are seeing thus far.

The AI-powered future of customer service began arriving several years ago, actually, with mass deployment of mostly mediocre, self-service chatbots. That soured many teams about AI—until they started using it as a collaborative tool on the job. 

“Customer support is one of the primary areas of business where AI is being used,” says longtime customer service researcher and author Shep Hyken. “But it’s mostly been used as a self-service customer support tool. When support teams are trained on the power of AI, not only does customer experience improve but people are enjoying their jobs more.”

Better CX = Better EX

Customer service teams handle some of the most tedious tasks in an organization: dealing with huge volumes of requests and queries from often difficult customers. The Freshworks study reveals how AI is reducing the burden on those teams while improving the quality of service. A few highlights: 

• 35% of customer service employees are seeing AI improve customer experiences 

• 25% say they have seen AI completely turn around a bad customer experience or helped them deal with a sophisticated customer issue

• 36% say AI is driving more noticeable value than ever before

As a result, support teams report seeing AI benefits in employee experience, too. 

• 40% say that AI bots and agents are invaluable to their workload

• 47% say that working alongside AI chatbots would transform their work

• 53% say that being able to deflect basic support queries to AI would make their job better

Read also: How ‘people-first AI’ creates competitive advantage

While the vast majority of customer service workers (83%) wish to hand off routine tasks, they are just as eager to keep handling the higher-touch aspects of customer service, such as upselling (81%) and speaking directly to customers (72%).

Closing the policy gap

While a brighter AI future may be on the horizon, many customer service teams still face internal challenges with adoption. According to the study, customer support teams ranked last among all departments in deployment of AI-usage policies and lack of employee knowledge of AI. 

That suggests a clear opportunity for executives to invest more in training and governance, but one they are ready to meet. More than 68% of survey respondents said that their organization will pay to support employee upskilling for AI. 

Employees need to feel comfortable and want to use the technology—and this starts with taking the time to make sure they feel confident using it. A big component will also be assuring employees that AI is here to help them, not replace them.

“There’s no doubt that some roles are going to be eliminated, but that doesn't mean people lose their jobs,” says Hyken. “It means they are transferred into another level of responsibility handling more complex issues. They’re being up leveled and not having to deal with the day-to-day, mundane same questions. They’re going to enjoy their jobs more.”