Embracing AI in Customer Service: A Leader's Journey

Hello, and welcome to VIP: Value in People, my biweekly newsletter. Here, I’ll engage with you on what matters most to the customer service experience. Thank you so much for being here. If you want to know more about me or VIPdesk, click here!?

AI is THE topic in the customer service industry, but many feel intimidated by this new technology. This week, I want to share our experience with AI so far and what a leader needs to do to educate themselves on these incredible resources.

Just a year ago, the quality of customer service in the U.S. vs. offshore was a debated topic in our industry. Post COVID-19 pandemic, businesses were looking to reduce costs, leading many to consider outsourcing their customer service offshore. But just as offshoring was gaining momentum, Generative AI was introduced — and it promises to offer another alternative to handle customer service inquiries.

Generative AI, capable of generating high-quality text, images, and other content based on training data, has significantly advanced customer service technologies. Our first enlightening step was in data analytics, allowing us to gain a deeper understanding of customers' likes, dislikes, operational issues and general sentiment. But then we started to see more automation, truly phenomenal automation, with generative chatbots, and now amazing voice and video bots.

Leading a business through this transformation has been a roller coaster. Future-proofing is more necessary now than ever, and that means not only embracing the new technology but getting out ahead of what is happening and managing resistance. While many on our team were excited about AI, others reacted with understandable fear. They were afraid that AI would destroy the customer service experience, take customer service jobs, and ultimately kill the service industry. When facing so many unknowns, it’s challenging for a leader to paint a clear picture. We were transitioning from a business that employs humans to help other humans to one that uses technologies to help humans.

What is the responsibility of leaders during a time of transformation? I believe it is to be as educated as anyone on the team. You cannot lead what you don’t understand. This is all new, so there are no experts — yet. To embrace AI with confidence, leaders should:

• Learn and become trained on as many technologies as possible
• Seek to train your leadership teams quickly
• Share articles, YouTube videos, and other content to help your team gain knowledge
• Pay for ChatGPT for all leaders, and use it daily
• Use Co-Pilot if you are a Microsoft shop (although, I think ChatGPT is much better)
• Provide ongoing training on how to use these technologies
• If you believe a role will be impacted by AI, make a plan to upskill those employees
• Partner with HR to add guidelines to your team member handbook
• Communicate change (then communicate again— they say 7 times)

Typically, we’d share our quarterly progress plan with our team. However, this year is the first where I’ve found myself fully embracing a mid-year revised strategy. And leaders need to be okay with that possibility.

The view of AI can look like it’s all over the map, and to some extent, it is. But we are adapting in real-time to the fastest evolution I’ve ever seen.

Navigating new territory is tough, but the benefits of these new technologies are well worth the effort. A responsive, accurate solution can help businesses scale when they need it the most. For example, many businesses experience surges during certain times of the year, like the holidays. An amazing chatbot can really help manage the increase in customer contacts, which can be very difficult to staff up and down. A great chatbot can quickly answer many standard inquiries, leaving room for more complicated issues to be elevated to talented humans. The best scenario is a combination of AI and human expertise, leading to an efficient, positive experience for customers and workers alike.

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