Customer Success will be VASTLY different in just a few years.

I've been in customer success for over 15 years and I've seen a lot of changes. Get ready for the next one could shock you and change your life forever.

Redefining Customer Engagement with AI

In the coming five years, AI is set to transform the landscape of customer success, becoming the primary conduit for customer interactions. This evolution will offer a scalable, highly personalized experience that transcends the capabilities of traditional human-driven services. AI agents will not only facilitate text-based interactions but will also engage customers through realistic real-time video and voice conversations across multiple platforms including phone, chat, portals, and even 3D holograms, mimicking in-person engagements.

Imagine a SaaS product where intelligent AI agents are deployed to manage customer relationships end-to-end. These agents will handle everything from onboarding to support, anticipate customer needs, and navigate users through a customized journey tailored by ongoing data collection and feedback. This proactive approach ensures that every customer receives timely and precise support, enhancing satisfaction and retention.

Operational Transformation with AI Integration

AI will play a pivotal role in daily operations through an AI Agent Manager who will act as a chief of staff, overseeing the customer base and providing critical updates to the CCO or the head of Customer Success. This integration allows for a seamless blend of human insight and AI efficiency, creating a dynamic customer success team that leverages the strengths of both entities.

Customers will be segmented by the AI Agent Manager, enabling tailored engagement strategies. Human CSMs will focus on strategic accounts, maintaining a low ratio to ensure quality interaction, while AI agents manage broader interactions, scaling up to thousands of customers each. This segmentation allows for personalized customer experiences while achieving common goals set by the customer success team.

Strategic and Operational Roles of AI in Customer Success

1. Top Customer Segment: Human CSMs will strategize and plan, while AI agents manage lifecycle functions such as onboarding, support, and success plans for individual users at large strategic accounts.
2. Long Tail Customer Segment: AI agents will support the entire customer lifecycle, escalating only complex issues to their human managers.

Both human and AI CSMs will utilize conversational AI to interact with customers, employing natural language processing and adaptive learning to mimic human-like interactions and effectively summarize and organize data back into the CRM. They will access integrated data from CRM and product usage systems to develop strategic success plans based on proven best practices.

New way to look at challenges.? Cost Management, offshoring, Regional Support.

Many companies attempt to manage customer success costs by employing offshore teams. While this may seem cost-effective initially, it introduces significant management complexities and often degrades customer experiences. Dual management overhead and cultural misalignments can lead to service inconsistencies and a decline in customer satisfaction, potentially increasing churn risk.

In contrast, integrating AI into customer success operations can drastically reduce costs—up to 70% less than maintaining a local human team and 50% less than using an outsourced team. This cost reduction comes without sacrificing the quality of customer interactions. In fact, AI can enhance the customer experience by providing consistent, knowledgeable, and personalized engagement, thereby stabilizing customer retention and satisfaction.?

Don’t forget that the AI can be tuned towards the customer region with items such as language support, demographic, area, even tone and accent of the voice can be customized towards the customer they are talking to and switched on the fly.??

Not ready for AI to be a part of your Team?? Think about Capacity planning for Q4.? AI does some things really WELL and really FAST like researching customers, preparing for conversations, re-writing articles. ? And if you’re using a Chat more than a year old, then throw it away and get a new one that is based on Gen AI.? ? If you’re not ready to hire an AI to be a contributing member of your team, you might consider giving it some tasks for capacity planning, take a look at my previous article .

Integrating with Existing Systems for Holistic Success

The proposed SaaS platform will integrate seamlessly with existing tools, providing a unified dashboard for comprehensive insights into customer health, proactive engagement strategies, and real-time analytics. AI agents will autonomously coordinate with specialized agents to manage everything from support tickets to upsell opportunities, creating an intelligent, holistic customer success network. This platform is not just a tool but a strategic asset designed to enhance customer retention, growth, and satisfaction.??

The Future Landscape: AI as the New Standard

The integration of AI will reduce the need for multiple systems and applications, streamlining operations and interactions through a single AI interface. These AI agents will handle tasks with greater emotional intelligence and efficiency than traditional human roles. As AI continues to evolve, we anticipate a future where AI agents outnumber human employees, capable of generating additional AI agents to support their operations, thus establishing a new era of automated customer service excellence.

This new visionary approach not only promises enhanced customer engagement and operational efficiency but also positions AI as a fundamental element in the future of work, redefining roles and expectations within the customer success landscape.