Customer Experience Paradigm in Question: What Does Generative AI Bring to Customer Servicing?

When considering high-quality traditional customer servicing methods, personalized direct human interaction has been the gold standard. My suspicion as to why is deeply rooted in human psychology. Trust, being a fundamental expectation in any transaction, even a customer servicing interaction, means that customers want to trust that their needs will be supported. They seek clear understanding and certainty that critical information required to meet their needs will be communicated, and the necessary actions to service them will be taken. What better way to achieve that level of assurance than by speaking to a knowledgeable, trustworthy representative of a company?

Before the internet, the only way to directly interact with a customer service representative would be in person or over the phone. Less timely direct servicing could have taken place via postal mail and fax, but the speed, assurance, and responsiveness of those leave something to be desired.

With today's internet, customers have been equipped with an incredible amount of information and tools to self-serve, such as company FAQs, company site search, Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems, online communities, blogs, general search engines (Google, Bing, etc.), and YouTube videos. However, even with these tools, there is an ongoing need for deeper customer servicing, and once again, direct human interaction is called for.

The two primary instances where a human representative is still invaluable come to mind: 1) when a question cannot be answered without a knowledgeable representative, and 2) when the servicing need is controlled in a way that requires direct human interaction for it to be acted upon. Instead of exploring the shortcomings that lead to these conditions, I find it valuable to highlight that customers may also greatly value empathetic support, personalized assistance, confidence in navigating complex or unique situations, flexibility and joint problem-solving, resolution ownership, and yes, the trust associated with the interaction. This brings us back to human psychology.

The advent of generative AI in customer service:

In this first phase of generative AI customer servicing, text-based interaction has the potential to disrupt the traditional model of customer servicing described above. Ironically, the argument is quite similar to what we have known for years with chatbots and conversational AI solutions (in a pre-Large Language Model world). Text-based interaction has already been breaking the paradigm with its potential for always-on 24/7 availability, consistent and accurate responses, multi-channel support (web, mobile, social, etc.), handling routine tasks quickly and efficiently, the ability to learn and improve, as well as providing an engaging and interactive experience.

Generative AI has the potential to take the conventional conversational AI servicing model to the next level. Consider the following prospective differences where the generative AI model is superior:

• More flexibility and adaptability when interpreting and processing customer servicing prompts.
• Nimble response generation that goes well beyond predefined responses based on pattern-matching, rule-based logic, or general retrieval techniques.
• Enhanced personalization offers the customer an interaction that can be tailored to their communication style, historical data, customer profile, and more.
• More engaging and natural conversations that can easily process nuances and conversation ambiguity.

While trust and habituation associated with direct human interaction are difficult to overcome, I have no doubt that advancements in text-based generative AI technology will create innovative step-change opportunities in customer servicing. While chatbots and conversational AI solutions are still valid and in play, consider their solutions as precursors that will only become more powerful as they embrace more generative AI capabilities.

Any industry that supports end-user customers stands to benefit from the step-change that is en route. Embracing the transformative power of generative AI can unlock a future where personalized effective support and engaging time-saving experiences converge.