Customer service centers can be hit or miss for consumers.
Sumantra Sarkar, associate professor at the School of Management at Binghamton University, explores whether A.I. can help.
Sumantra Sarkar is a behavioral information systems (IS) researcher who employs both qualitative and quantitative methodologies. He studies IS governance, healthcare IT, managerial decision making and security. Sarkar also has over two decades of experience working in senior IT management for large multinational corporations like GEC plc, Novell Inc., Hutchison Whampoa and ABN AMRO Bank.
Using AI to Enhance Flexibility and Efficiency of Customer Service Centers
Whenever you call customer service, the team on the other end of the line typically has three goals: to reduce their response time, to solve your problem and to do it within the shortest service time possible.
However, resolving your problem might entail a significant time investment, potentially clashing with an overarching business objective to keep service duration to a minimum. These conflicting priorities can be commonplace in customer service.
To help solve those conflicting demands, AI may be able to play a part in accomplishing these tasks.
In a three-year study, we observed the effects of various AI-assisted tasks on five contact centers. These tasks included using AI to open applications and send emails, make approval decisions on loan applications, and provide personalized service based on customer data and contact history.
While many customer service organizations have spent recent years investing in AI, one of the results of this study revealed that they haven’t used AI to its full potential. AI has mostly been used in self-service applications. To fully utilize AI’s benefits, customer service organizations need to examine every customer touchpoint and identify opportunities to enhance the customer experience while boosting the operation’s efficiency.
While using AI systems can benefit business strategy, companies should continue to support quality professional development and learning opportunities for their staff. AI can be utilized to strike a balance between being efficient and exploring new opportunities. AI should not replace humans but rather as a supplement to helping with customer service. As long as organizations do not rely exclusively on AI, AI can be a valuable tool in promoting customer satisfaction.
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