Shep Hyken: Agents need AI more than your customers

Few experts have studied the ups and downs of customer service longer or in more depth than Shep Hyken, author of several books including the best-selling “The Amazement Revolution” (2011), a compendium of strategies for companies that want to create great experiences for end users.

Hyken’s new survey of over 1,000 American consumers, “The State of Customer Service and CX,” surfaces a fairly urgent issue facing CX leaders in 2024: increasing reliance on AI to deliver great service.

Despite their strong desire and expectation to use new digital tools, nearly two-thirds (63%) of customers are frustrated by current self-service options, including AI. And 56% “admit to being scared of” technologies like AI and ChatGPT in customer service.

How should service leaders respond to those trends while keeping pace with technology? Hyken shared some of his insights in a recent interview with The Works. 

Lightly edited for clarity.

Where are we today in terms of digitizing customer support overall? What surprises you?

We’ve interviewed over 1,000 consumers weighted to the U.S. census for age, gender, ethnicity, geography, marriage, etc. So, we've got a really good cross section. Since I started studying this seriously over the last five years, phone support continues to be the No. 1 way that customers want to communicate. No. 2 is online chat with a live agent.

We asked, “When you have a problem or issue, which solution do you prefer to help solve your problem—phone or digital self-service?” Phone was 70%, digital was 30%.

Why is that?

We have seen an increase in phone usage, not a decrease, even though the self-service experience has gotten better, and there is a reason for that.

I don’t think people are quite comfortable enough with self-service yet, despite the fact that it’s improved significantly in recent years. And not enough companies have jumped on board with a good, AI-fueled self-service solution.

If you can create a self-service experience that’s easy, intuitive, and gets the answers your customers need, teach them to use it and let them know it’s available. Properly drive them to the self-service experience first, but be sure you have a human-to-human backup.

What AI solutions in customer support do you think will have the biggest impact?

I think we should stop just thinking about customer support and start thinking about agent support with AI. With AI, we're allowing customers to get basic information quickly, freeing up the agent for better time spent on customers with more complicated questions.

Read also: Real-time quality coaching in customer service

This means average handle time is going to go up, not down, when the questions get harder. But the fact that they don't have to deal with the simple questions is important. Using AI to support agents' questions creates a better agent experience in itself. 

If a customer calls with a complicated question and the agent is able to simply answer quickly with the right prompt—get the great answer, interpret the answer, and then use the communication style that the customers prefer—those incremental elements add up.

Then with AI support, the agent is better equipped to calm customers down if they’re upset or if they're concerned, help them feel more confident. AI can improve the agent’s ability to show empathy and provide the necessary words that go toward creating the connection with the customer.

In brief, agents do not need to know everything. They just need to know how to get everything, which is much easier.

AI will improve agents’ ability to do their jobs, but won’t it soon replace agents? 

If you look at my new study, I asked consumers what they thought, and there's a lot of fear in this space. Consumers think that the future of AI everywhere is already here, and 74% believe AI will lead to significant job losses. 

But that’s actually not the case. Our prediction is that AI will not eliminate jobs. We did a survey of U.S.-based CX professionals with Capterra several months ago and asked, “Are you going to eliminate or keep jobs because of AI?” Nearly two-thirds (63%) said they were going to increase the number of jobs, while only 9% said they were going to reduce it. 

Regardless of AI, what is the most critical prerequisite for delivering great CX?

That’s a great question, and there are so many ways to answer it. Let's start with culture, which has nothing to do with technology. What are the values of the company? Because if we want to do well, we'll figure out ways to do well.

If we don't care at the highest level where our mission and values and our culture are created—if we don't prove it and we’re just saying it—later on, whether it’s an agent, a chatbot, or other form of support, it’s not going to make the same difference.