How AI can reduce the cost of customer support team expansion

Following on from the August webinar How to overcome customer service challenges in a downturn, CX Network catches up with Rik Johnson, head of solutions at Curious Thing, who talks about reducing set-up costs and the future of artificial intelligence (AI).

CX Network: What is the biggest challenge for businesses looking to expand their customer support teams at present?

RJ: The most obvious challenge is the cost, not only of running an expanded support team, but also of building it up. A lot of expansion plans revolve around extending operating hours and giving customers more options about when they can interact with a business. For a customer this is great. For the business though, it is not just the extra headcount; you are looking at penalty loading, additional support costs, even increased facilities costs if you have people on-site. It adds up, particularly if those extended hours are not fully subscribed with customer demand yet.

One of the reasons the set-up cost is an issue is that it is very difficult to find great service talent, especially people who will stick around. Finding, hiring and training people is expensive, and competition is tough at the moment, so recruitment is constantly just trying to maintain headcount. Even if you find great people, there is a period of time where they need to build up their skills, so your CX can be a little lumpy as people get up to speed.

CX Network: When it comes to the applications of AI for CX, what developments do you see on the horizon for the coming few years?

RJ: I really think we are going to start seeing AI working alongside human service experts as true digital teammates that are extremely consistent and can be upskilled over time to further extend the capacity of support channels.

The CX conversation is not just about one channel though and it will always be important to have the right conversations in the right channels, and it has got to be co-designed with customers. Not to say that the customer should be dictating what service they get where, but neither should a business be disregarding customer preferences.

There is a balance between convenience, preference and cost. While voice is the most expensive support channel, aside from face-to-face, it is also preferred by customers in a lot of cases. Extending call centre hours is not viable cost-wise, but only permitting customers to call during business hours is not convenient.

This is where voice AI comes in as a bridge as customers can use voice any time they like, and businesses are not paying for night shifts. The quality of AI interactions is improving so quickly, and while there is a degree of nervousness about it, as soon as customers have a good experience with AI, the attitude shift can happen in a snap. We hear a lot, “I’d still prefer to speak with a person, but it was fine for this”. Save your humans for the really tricky stuff, or when you need to wow your customers.

To catch up with the webinar on demand, click here.