AI is a chance for more customer contact, not less
It’s often assumed that AI will make relationships with customers worse — or even nonexistent. Businesses only want to offload customer service to AI so they can save money, one critic gripes. Those AI agents are putting more distance between brands and their customers, argues another.
As someone who works daily with the technology, I’ve seen the opposite. Used right, AI is putting the customer in the driver’s seat in a way consumers and businesses have been desperately seeking since the dawn of the helpline.
The irony is that both customers and companies want better customer service. But until now, the issue has been scale. In the early days, new companies relish customer contact. That feedback loop is the key to building a great product, retaining existing customers and finding new ones.
But once a company scales, something strange happens. Dealing with customer issues comes to be seen as a cost, not an opportunity. Even as marketing teams go out of their way to reach new customers, customer service does its best to deflect existing ones, hiding behind phone trees and long wait times. Why? Time, money and resources.
AI has the potential to change that dynamic for the better.
