How Online Retail Executives View AI in Customer Service
Since the launch of ChatGPT, generative AI has found its way into the tools we use everyday, not just in our professional lives, but in our personal lives as well. Almost overnight, we’re able to summarize data, change the tone of a social post, get answers to questions, and so, so much more, all with just a click of a button.
Businesses are changing how they operate, and fast. It’s left some customer service agents wondering if this revolutionary advancement will completely replace their roles.
With this in mind, I surveyed 100 Owners and CEOs of online retail brands between 10 and 250 employees to better understand their priorities for their CX Department with the introduction of generative AI.
Not surprising, the #1 priority for their support pillar was to improve efficiency in customer service by implementing AI and other automations. What may be surprising is that an almost equivalent priority was to further develop their customer service people in order to improve service interactions.
AI driven efficiencies and people development are nearly equal priorities in customer service for online retail executives.
With the majority of survey respondents selecting both of these as one of their top priorities, it’s not that the audience was divided on machines vs humans. Leaders aren’t looking at AI as a way to eliminate their service people so much as they’re seeing it as a tool for their service people.
Investing in further team training and development makes sense. As AI tackles the straight-forward solutions, service agents will be expected to handle the more complicated situations and that will require further training. Service professionals are likely to also see their roles evolving to be less about answering questions and more about service operations, system management, and analytics.
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