Putting AI to work for Customer Service

Summary

In this transcript, Manish Goyal, Senior Partner at IBM Consulting, discusses how AI and generative AI can revolutionize customer service. He highlights the use of AI to enhance self-service, support human agents, and optimize contact center operations. Goyal explains how AI-driven tools can improve efficiency, reduce response times, and deliver delightful customer experiences. He emphasizes that AI can automate complex tasks, provide real-time insights, and help businesses meet rising customer expectations, ultimately transforming customer interactions into seamless, proactive, and omnichannel experiences.

Takeaways

• 📞 Customer service expectations are higher than ever, with clients demanding quick, satisfying responses across all channels.
• 🤖 Generative AI can significantly enhance customer service, automating complex tasks beyond previous technologies.
• 💬 Self-service tools, like virtual agents and chatbots, can now offer more natural and conversational experiences thanks to generative AI.
• 👩‍💼 Generative AI can improve agent productivity by quickly retrieving and summarizing relevant information, helping to resolve customer queries faster.
• 📈 AI-driven insights from call transcripts can identify operational inefficiencies, classify complaints, and drive proactive problem-solving.
• 📝 Generative AI can automate after-call work by transcribing and summarizing conversations, improving consistency and reducing agent downtime.
• 🔄 AI enables seamless omnichannel experiences, allowing customer requests initiated in one channel to be completed in another without friction.
• ⚙️ Companies should define the customer experience they aim to deliver, understand their audience, and choose the right tools to support the journey.
• 🇺🇸 IBM has applied AI to improve US Veterans Affairs' services, processing millions of documents and significantly speeding up benefits delivery.
• 🚀 The innovation in generative AI is accelerating, and organizations must adopt these capabilities quickly to leverage the vast opportunities they offer.

Q & A

What is the main challenge faced by customer service today?

The main challenge in customer service today is staying ahead of customer expectations and ensuring that every interaction is not only positive but delightful, particularly as customers expect faster and more seamless service.

How can AI and automation improve customer service experiences?

AI and automation, including generative AI, can improve customer service by providing insights that help businesses create smoother self-service experiences, support human agents with relevant tools and information, and optimize operations such as real-time call transcription and email drafting.

What is the significance of self-service in modern customer service?

Self-service allows customers to resolve their own issues, which reduces demand on contact centers. With generative AI, self-service experiences are becoming more natural and conversational, resilient to variations, and quicker to set up by automating the creation of dialogue flows.

How does generative AI assist human customer service agents?

Generative AI assists agents by quickly retrieving information from knowledge bases, providing summarized insights, and helping draft email responses. This reduces customer wait times and improves agent productivity.

What role does AI play in contact center operations?

AI helps contact center operations by analyzing transcripts of customer interactions to identify common issues, streamline processes, and automatically generate summaries of conversations, thereby enhancing agent efficiency and consistency.

What impact can AI have on customer loyalty and lifetime value?

Good customer service supported by AI can turn one-time customers into long-term brand advocates. NPS promoters (loyal customers) are said to have 10 times the lifetime value of NPS detractors, and AI can help businesses deliver more consistently positive customer experiences.

What are some specific AI-powered tools mentioned that improve customer service?

Some AI-powered tools mentioned include virtual agents and chatbots for self-service, generative AI for knowledge retrieval, email drafting, and real-time call transcription, as well as AI insights to improve overall customer service operations.

How does generative AI help field service agents?

Generative AI helps field service agents by providing faster and more accurate solutions to troubleshoot problems in the field, which reduces the time it takes to resolve customer issues and enhances service quality.

What is a real-world example of AI and automation improving customer service?

A real-world example is IBM's work with the US Veterans Affairs, where AI and automation were used to expedite claims processing, including automating document intake and applying AI to medical records. This resulted in faster claim resolution and better service for veterans.

Why is generative AI considered critical for the future of customer service?

Generative AI is critical because it significantly enhances productivity and customer satisfaction. It can automate complex tasks, improve multi-channel coordination, and help resolve customer issues faster, allowing businesses to meet rising customer expectations in a cost-effective way.