Dive Brief:
- Forrester expects AI agents will remake the customer service workforce as they begin to handle more complex customer inquiries, the analyst firm said in a report released last month.
- Virtual assistants will replace “vast swaths of customer service agents,” Forrester said. Humans, meanwhile, will take on supervisory roles to ensure that AI agents meet business needs and help chatbots when they cannot satisfy customer demands.
- AI-led customer service will blur “the lines between previously siloed functions” and prompt “organizations to create new roles and redefine existing ones,” Forrester said.
Dive Insight:
More and more businesses are relying on AI-powered chatbots to provide customer service and support, aiming to cut contact center costs and curb the use of human agents. As use of the technology is fine tuned and expanded, AI will soon transform contact center staffing and operations.
Some brands have been outspoken about this change. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said last month that AI will improve customer experience but reduce the number of people required for today’s jobs.
Forrester, too, sees a drastic change — and reduction — of workforce roles.
“In the not so distant future, customer service will be led by automation supervisors and specialists, who will manage and optimize AI based on enterprise goals of cost, revenue, and profitability,” the report says. “Humans in these strategic roles will be responsible for guiding, optimizing, and orchestrating AI workflows.”
Companies will need to educate staff on what it means to be the human in that loop and work alongside AI, Christina McAllister, senior analyst at Forrester, told CX Dive last week.
Humans will be responsible for fine-tuning AI by intervening when virtual assistants get stuck, Forrester predicts. However, this role will “decline naturally as AI learns lessons from human-assisted cases.”
Customer service leaders will increasingly act as automation supervisors as the role of human agents declines, according to Forrester. Such supervisors will analyze performance gaps, address knowledge deficits and adapt workflows to ensure high-quality outcomes.
“By approaching operational oversight with a systemic mindset, automation supervisors will play a critical role in aligning AI performance with business objectives,” the report says.
Contact centers may also employ process architects to embed expertise in agentic workflows. These process architects would work alongside machine learning engineers, application developers and subject-matter experts.
“As low-code tools emerge to support these use cases, a new class of citizen developers will step in to bridge the gap,” the report says.
As they rely less on human agents, customer service leaders will actively monitor and adjust the allocation of resources in real-time to optimize performance rather than focus on reducing costs.
Organizations, however, will continue to rely on humans for high-value interactions that require “empathy, expertise, nuanced problem-solving, and relationship-building,” the report says.
As a result, customer service leaders will need to intentionally adjust their workforce’s skills and roles as they adopt AI.
“Those who view their organization as a set of capabilities delivered by people with skills, rather than as a collection of roles, adapt more easily to new ways of working,” the report says. “As you prepare for the transition to AI-first operations, think beyond today’s defined roles and see what skills, experience, and talent can transfer to future roles.”
