Artificial intelligence (AI), offers several benefits to business leaders, including giving them access to a 24/7 resource which never tires, rarely makes mistakes, and doesn’t charge a monthly salary.
However, world-leading analysts Gartner recently shared their insights with CX Today, stating that companies relying too heavily on AI will open the door to serious risks. According to Emily Potosky, the Senior Director of Research for Gartner’s Customer Service and Support Practice, even the most advanced AI algorithms still have limitations. They shouldn’t be seen as replacing humans but as a solution to augment and empower existing teams.
Fears that AI will replace human beings are increasingly common. Now that AI is more advanced than ever, concerns are growing with the rise of deep learning models, generative AI, and neural networks.
Up to 3 in 4 Americans now believe AI will reduce the number of jobs available to workers, and customer service agents feel more pressure than most. Countless contact center solutions enable companies to reduce their reliance on human skill sets with generative AI bots and automated workflows.
According to one HFS Research report, customer service and sales were two of the top departments most likely to be impacted by AI’s transformation.
However, while AI solutions can accomplish a lot in the contact center, analysts like Potosky believe some level of human assistance will always be crucial. She’s not alone in this opinion. In a recent Gartner survey, around 61% of business executives believe AI won’t reduce their human headcount in the contact center by more than 5%.
We’ve discussed previously how AI tools can augment human professionals, helping them streamline and optimize repetitive tasks.
For instance, McKinsey suggests up to 64% of data collection activities can be automated, but that doesn’t eliminate the need for a data scientist for bot training, data analysis, and creativity.
Similarly, in the customer service landscape, AI tools can creatively respond to common questions, help customers troubleshoot problems, and even complete tasks like processing transactions.
However, they can’t understand emotions and context to the same degree as humans, which leads to the potential for misinterpretations. They also can’t show empathy, creatively develop new ways to solve problems based on their experiences, or reassure a concerned customer. Not to mention, there are various other, more technical challenges to consider. Replacing humans with bots entirely in the contact center would require technical knowledge, development expertise, and constant monitoring.
At The DDC Group, we believe in giving people the tools and resources they need to be as effective as possible. Like Gartner and many others, we see AI as enhancing human performance, not replacing it.
As Potosky noted to CX Today, AI tools can provide employees with the context, support, and guidance they need to excel in their roles. AI might reduce business leaders’ dependence on skills and expertise, widening the talent pool to engage in customer-facing work. This may mean that business leaders don’t need to hire as many additional staff members to handle spikes in call volume. However, it won’t eliminate the need for humans. Instead, it will help companies manage rising costs and challenges by:
Many organizations have already cut down their human teams, rushing to adopt AI simply because they want to keep up with the competition, without understanding the potential risks they’ll face.
However, Gartner believes the increasing prominence of AI in the contact center will lead to significant changes in the years ahead, influencing how companies adopt the technology. In the coming years the EU will likely update its consumer protection laws to give every customer the right to speak to a human. It’s certainly something that may occur if AI, at some stage, harms a customer.
Ultimately, relying exclusively on AI to manage customer service processes can be a significant risk. It risks the well-being of your customers and impacts your brand’s reputation and ability to retain consumers long-term. AI has limitations, from the common hallucinations of generative AI tools to the lack of empathy and sometimes biased behaviours that bots demonstrate. Despite this, Gartner believes that by 2028, a third of customer service interactions will involve autonomous agents.
We believe there’s nothing wrong with embracing AI’s potential, particularly if it augments and supports your agents, increases employee engagement, and streamlines customer service interactions.