Will AI Make Customer Service Better or Worse? New Survey
Finds Consumers Are Split. But they definitely prefer AI-assisted human reps rather than fully automated chatbots.
By Brian Contreras, Staff reporter
It takes only one bad customer service call--one mind-numbing, seemingly endless call--to threaten to ruin someone's day. Could artificial intelligence offer an alternative?
A new survey commissioned by the AI customer service company Cogito tells a mixed story.
The survey, released Tuesday and conducted by the market research firm Dynata this summer, asked 1,000 American adults how they feel about AI-driven customer service. Just over half of them, 54 percent, said they thought AI is net helpful in customer service contexts--while the remaining 46 percent think it's net harmful.
But the choice doesn't need to be so binary. A big chunk of the poll hinged on whether AI is better used as a wholesale replacement for human customer service reps, or as a tool to help those reps do their jobs better.
Most respondents--77 percent--said that when engaging with customer service, they'd rather interact with a human using AI "in the background" than a fully automated chatbot. And 22 percent said that they were uncomfortable with a customer service agent using AI behind the scenes of a call in any way.
Additionally, 39 percent said that talking with a chatbot or automated system is worse than talking with a real human, while 33 percent said it's better.
"While AI tools are seen as valuable for streamlining tasks behind the scenes, a clear preference exists for human customer service agents," Cogito wrote in its analysis of the results. "Net-net: AI is best seen as a tool to empower agents, not replace them."
It's likely the outcome the firm, which uses AI to guide and advise human customer service agents in real time, was hoping for. Cogito chief executive Joshua Feast once told Inc. that his mission is to help people "be more emotionally intelligent in real time," whether that's with a call center employee or someone on a first date.
Artificial intelligence software could also open up new sales opportunities during customer service calls. Consumers in the Cogito/Dynata poll identified "customized sales offers" as the number-one way that AI could improve customer service--more so than reducing errors, speeding things up, or having 24/7 availability. The survey found that 53 percent of respondents said they were open to receiving sales pitches during a call based on their personal preferences and purchase history.
Meanwhile, the loss of "human-to-human connection" came in as the technology's single biggest downside for customers, while a "lack of empathy" was the second biggest.
"This data confirms a growing trend Cogito is seeing" in contact centers, Feast said in a written statement. "Organizations are evolving from purely resolving service issues, to taking the opportunity to present new offers during a customer service experience. AI ushers this movement forward by helping identify the right proposal to make."
As the AI sector continues to grow, the question of which human jobs it will replace completely, versus which it will merely augment, is becoming increasingly immediate. Already, Cogito's survey found that 58 percent of respondents are interacting with AI customer service frequently or occasionally--with 44 percent saying they've circumvented the need to speak with human customer service reps thanks to AI chatbots on company websites or apps.
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