Dive Brief:
- Half of customers are willing to use a generative AI assistant in customer service interactions, according to a Gartner survey of more than 4,800 consumers released last week. That willingness, however, varies by consumers’ preferred channel.
- While 76% of customers who used social media as their primary channel in their last customer service interaction are open to generative AI assistants, that drops to 35% among those who used the phone as their primary channel.
- Three different surveys show consumers’ “big concern is not being able to reach a person,” Keith McIntosh, senior principal quantitative researcher on the customer service and support team at Gartner, told CX Dive. “It's a new technology, probably like the internet back in the day, where there's curiosity, but there's also little fear, a little healthy skepticism.”
Dive Insight:
Convincing reluctant customers to use generative AI can take more than investing in a great self-service experience.
A common strategy among customer service leaders is to purchase a very sophisticated generative AI solution and use it to power a high-quality chatbot, according to McIntosh. They believe customers will be wowed by the power of the tool and become AI converts.
“That may be appropriate some of the time, but we've seen that that doesn't always work particularly well,” McIntosh told CX Dive. Customers will often stick to the customer service journey they already know even when alternatives are presented as superior.
Other factors may be at play as well, according to McIntosh. For instance, customers contacting a travel company might be more likely to prefer live agents over the phone because it’s easier to speak to a person than type to a chatbot while dragging luggage through an airport.
Customers have legitimate concerns about the technology, regardless of the reasons behind them, according to McIntosh. One way to overcome this fear is to add generative AI to enhance a tool customers already expect, like an interactive voice response system.
Customers already expect to use the technology before they speak with a live agent, according to McIntosh. If an AI-powered IVR solves their problem, that’s a positive for the interaction. If the AI fails, the customer is already in the process of transitioning to an assisted channel.
Businesses can benefit from reassuring consumers that they will be able to contact a live agent at any time regardless of where any AI-powered customer service journey starts.
The key, McIntosh said, is to tell customers that from the beginning of their journey, so consumers “feel confident starting in whatever self-service gen AI solution you're offering to them, because they know ultimately it will lead to a human being if they need,” McIntosh said.
Agents have a role to play, too, and can recommend AI-powered self-service options during conversations. Gartner found that customers are more likely to try self-service tools after a call center agent promotes a company’s self-service offerings.
