AI-powered virtual assistants can answer up to 80% of FAQs successfully, cut customer service costs by 30%, and reduce the workload for your agents. Does this mean that chatbots will replace humans in customer service? Not at all! It means that it’s the collaboration between humans and bots that'll make your customer service stand out!
According to new research from Gartner, by 2027, chatbots will be the primary customer service channel for about 25 percent of organizations.
“Chatbots and virtual customer assistants have evolved over the past decade to become a critical technology component of a service organization’s strategy,” says Uma Challa, Senior Director Analyst at Gartner.
With chatbots becoming more apt at having natural conversations with customers (ChatGPT says "hello"), they can handle more queries, and substantially reduce costs and workload for customer service teams. If they can do all of that, will chatbots then soon replace humans?
Will chatbots replace humans in customer service?
Absolutely not! Experts agree that bots won’t replace humans in customer service any time soon.
Bots and humans simply have different strengths, and that’s why smart businesses won’t try to replace one with the other, but find the best ways in which bots and humans can win as a team.
When it comes to bots and humans in customer service, the real challenge is to figure out how humans and bots can best work together, and really benefit from each other.
The closer the collaboration, the more information is transferred from one to another, the better your customer service will be.
The best customer service happens when bots and humans come together
Of course, this requires a connected system where both, chatbots and humans, can access and store customer information.
How can you achieve that?
For the best synergies between bots and humans in customer service, your smart AI-powered virtual assistants and your customer care system need to be connected! This integration is what will make bots in customer service the most efficient and enable agents to offer your customers the best possible assistance.
Therefore, when you're setting up a hybrid customer service system, where humans and bots will work together, it’s important to think less about replacing humans with bots, and more about what you can do so bots and humans can come together for the best possible customer service.
We’ll explain, step by step, how you can develop a successful human-bot collaboration.
💡Learn from others! Check out how BMW was able to automate 80% of their customer service with a chatbot.