Growth is a key element for any business, and without customer service, sustainable growth is impossible. As the number of customers increases, the amount of support will inevitably increase. And without the resources to efficiently respond to increased support demands, businesses will fail to provide a satisfying experience for their customers, leaving them with a strong desire to take their business elsewhere.
Traditionally, scaling customer service alongside business growth has been a difficult balance. The only real option to meet the growing demand was to keep adding more and more people to the support team, which was costly, time-consuming, and unsustainable. This has always been a catch-22. Choose between increasing speed, providing a great customer experience, or keeping costs low.
AI disrupts linear growth models. Support leaders no longer need to grow their teams at a pace that meets demand. Instead, you can use AI tools to deliver the trifecta of better, faster, and more economical customer service.
What is the opportunity cost of not implementing AI?
Without AI-first customer service, you won’t see the benefits of breaking away from traditional linear growth models. The quality of the customer experience continues to be limited by the size of your support team and the need to recruit, hire, onboard, and train staff to keep up with business growth.
Deferring AI-first customer service has significant costs, including limited business growth and scalability, poor customer experience, and reduced competitiveness. Without AI, businesses will be left behind.
From perceived cost center to core value driver
There are several strategies that can help your organization make a real impact in the new era of AI-first customer service.
1. Rethink customer service ROI.
The real value of AI-first customer service goes beyond cost savings. Improves support quality, scalability, and overall business impact. Savvy support teams look at ROI from two perspectives: increased bandwidth and cost efficiency.
But how can you quantify the ROI of AI-first customer service? When purchasing or calculating the value of an AI agent, go beyond list price and consider price per resolution There is a need. The biggest revenue driver and highest ROI comes from achieving the highest resolution and performance rate. Here’s a simple example.
To get a complete picture of ROI, you should also consider the total cost of ownership of introducing a new tool, including implementation costs and integration with your existing technology stack.
2. Give your support team opportunities to create value.
When thinking about the new economics of AI, it’s easy to get caught up in how AI will impact existing customer service models. But one of the most powerful aspects of AI is how it opens up and helps us rethink what that model looks like in the first place, creating new opportunities for teams and businesses. .
Instead of getting bogged down answering the same questions over and over again, AI-powered support teams have more time to focus on revenue-generating, value-creating tasks like proactive support, customer onboarding, and premium support. can. All this work is done over a long period of time. – Customer satisfaction and loyalty.
3. Redefine success and how it is measured.
AI-first customer support doesn’t just change how support is delivered. We also need to rethink how we measure success. Traditionally, support costs, or metrics, have been tied to agent salaries, emphasizing quantity over quality and minimizing average handle time.
With AI, the focus on volume and speed becomes more important, allowing teams to instead focus on solving more valuable, complex problems and delighting customers. This change is positive, reducing costs per transaction, improving first response times, and increasing customer satisfaction. As a result, companies using AI-first customer service are moving away from volume-based metrics such as ticket counts to holistic key performance indicators such as customer satisfaction, AI resolution rates, and engagement rates.
4. Get executive buy-in the first time.
You don’t have to give it your all from day one. Start small and build from there. AI brings compounding benefits, so every small change helps. Start with step 1, such as implementing an AI agent to solve FAQs for some of your loyal customers. Then, gather feedback, test ideas, and refine your approach before rolling out AI to more customers.
This phased introduction helps reassure executives that organizations can implement AI without disrupting their business or customers. AI offers value beyond cost savings, but sharing early ROI calculations and real-world impact can help demonstrate leadership.
Learn more about how to shift your support team’s perception from a cost center to a value driver with Intercom’s detailed guide The new economics of customer service.
