Too often, AI and humans are  seen as substitutes rather than partners. In particular, when it comes to future of customer service, businesses question if they should invest in live representatives or chatbots. At Ada, we don’t believe it’s a question of one or the other. Introducing automation should not replace agents, but rather, morph their role to a more strategic one in which their deep business knowledge is leveraged to strengthen the customer experience.

Creating and changing, not replacing

An automated solution is now seen as a complementary business tool used to support agents, not replace them. A Zendesk study showed that 52% of customers stopped purchasing due to a single disappointing customer support interaction. Often, these disappointing interactions are usually due to the inability to receive the support needed, at the time it's needed. AI-powered automation means FAQs can be instantly resolved, keeping this flood of inquiries off the desks of agents. Chatbots can also absorb the repetitive first steps that often precede the resolution of an inquiry that would otherwise be left to agents, including authenticating and identifying the right live support to assist. Then, when live-agent handoffs occurs, the chatbot provides the agent the full chat transcript to provide them with conversational context, and ensure the conversation proceeds seamlessly and enables the agent to use their time for these higher-value customer interactions.

As a result, agents are seeing their experience transformed as automation reallocates their time to high-value customer interactions. Companies leveraging AI-powered chatbots are already reaping the benefits of empowering their agents with automation. And in addition to these higher-value interactions, agents have now become an invaluable source of knowledge. “For too long, the people who know your customers and your products better than anyone, and who really embody your brand, have been undervalued,” says Ada’s CEO Mike Murchison. Strategic firms are now leveraging the deep product-knowledge and customer-empathy of agents to improve CX across the entire customer journey.

Harmonizing humans and AI

By 2021, nearly one in six customer service interactions globally will be handled by artificial intelligence (AI) according to Gartner. Firms that can harmonize humans and AI-powered chatbots like Ada’s will not only create jobs rather than replace them, but also orchestrate meaningful customer-agent interactions that generate value for all stakeholders.

Looking to transform your agents’ experience and empower them to serve customers in a more impactful way? Download our Ebook to learn more about the trends anticipated for automated customer experience (ACX) in 2019 and beyond.