Customers crave human touch in customer experience,
and how AI feeds the need at scale.
AI entered the customer experience landscape earlier than you thought, in the 1960s, AI was at its infancy with systems like ELIZA. It mirrored the user’s language and identified keywords in a statement – and created complete sentences in response. ELIZA however, was more an experiment than a functional customer support tool. But it was a seminal idea on which AI chatbots came into being.
Fast forward to the internet era where simple, rule driven chatbots stepped into the customer service landscape. Over the years, with machine learning and data, AI evolved with the rise in computational power. There was more data to learn from – which helped AI learn on the job and recognize patterns over the years.
With the entry of Generative AI in early 2020s, AI could now generate responses on the fly and take centre stage in personalised customer support. This is where things get interesting. People could now reach out to customer support and get work done without involving a human, sounds like a relief for introverts TBH ????
To put the above statement into data, here’s something that Survey Monkey found –
- 65% of consumers would be comfortable using AI to order food and drinks.
- 59% of customers would use AI to return a purchase.
- 29% would turn to AI when making investment decisions.
- 28% said they’d be comfortable using AI to access medical advice.
While these stats highlight that the population is warming up to AI, what this survey fails to ask is – what about grievances? Will customers trust an AI chatbot with queries, issues and grievances? This is when customers start seeking a human to resolve their concerns. They’d rather wait to be connected with a human than get resolution from a chatbot which has 10X knowledge and data fed into it.
According to a study by Sigma Connected, 74% of customers say they’re more loyal to a company when they can speak to a real person instead of an automated system when they need assistance. This is because we as people crave the assurance that a human customer service agent gives us. Reason? They offer something that AI doesn’t, humans sympathise with our problems.
You’d turn to an automated chatbot for a support question or a small FAQ or a service request.
But when it comes to larger issues related to products or payments – we want humans who can relate to our troubles and solve them emphatically. AI is brilliant with automated processes like notifications or well timed emails, but it can’t replace the reassurance one feels after talking to an experienced representative.
The involvement of humans is possible at smaller levels, where customer service can be personalised because of the small customer base.
But is this level of personalised customer service possible at a large scale multinational company level?
Maybe not. Human agents will find it tough to remember the backstory of every customer to give them the personalised solutions they deserve. And that’s where AI comes back into discussion. One, at the basic level of reading through customer data and two at the advanced level of reading in between lines while talking to a customer.
Let’s elaborate on both –
One: This is a basic, widespread use of AI currently functioning in most CX tools. The model scans through customer data, conversations and preferences. The AI model captures > transcribes > analyses customer conversations. Then it responds with the relevant tone and solution.
Two: This level of AI in CX is still at nascent stages, but can create a positive shift in customer engagement. It has to do with artificial empathy while talking to customers, AI analyses the tone and voice of the customer before responding to them. This is a leap for botkind since it can now read in between the lines, the silence and the pauses the customer takes. AI can understand and empathise with hesitance, signs and emotions of the customers.
AI models like Hume AI can read vocal tones and facial micro expressions, making the responses more human-like and kind.
Additionally, with the onset of LLMs from companies like Yellow.ai will add to the regional language human touch to Indian markets, something that is already underway in Indonesia with Komodo 7B.
And what about the customers and companies, are they open to these innovations?
YES, both customers and companies are game about this.
Here’s what customers feel –
71% of customers believe that AI will make customer experiences more empathetic, according to Zendesk research.
Here’s the take of companies –
According to the Zendesk Customer Experience Trends Report, 69% of organisations believe generative AI can humanise digital interactions.
Statistics like these tell us that there is a rising demand for empathetic AI and the question about human touch in customer service will soon cease to exist.
However, we shouldn’t forget to keep humans in the loop. AI should know when to escalate certain conversations to its human counterparts – as it can sometimes risk misreading emotions and come up with inappropriate responses. In no time, AI models will learn from human reactions and evolve into highly empathetic models – just like they picked up scale through machine learning and data in the early days!
