Service and support leaders have long chased the dream of effective self-service, yet reality often fell short, necessitating expanded assisted support. Despite the need for healthy skepticism with any new technology, a new era is emerging with generative artificial intelligence, which offers a pivotal advancement that could seamlessly blend assisted and self-service into a unified delivery model.
This transformation is not just about improving customer service but also aligning with broader organizational goals, such as driving profitable growth through digital investments. As technology becomes a focal point for service functions, leaders must integrate it into their service strategies and leverage it to redefine their function's business value.
Generative AI represents a pivotal advancement in service technology, offering the potential to blend assisted and self-service into a cohesive model. This innovation is particularly attractive to chief financial officers who expect digital investments to drive profitable growth.
The focus on technology as a means to replace employees has shifted the spotlight onto service and support functions, opening access to increased investment. As a result, service leaders must no longer view technology as a separate project or assign it solely to the IT department. Instead, they must integrate it into their service strategies, navigating how enterprise partners can either enable or hinder its success. This moment serves as a catalyst for transformation, providing service and support leaders the opportunity to redefine their function's business value.
Three major trends are set to shape service and support organizations by 2025. Firstly, there is an increasing reliance on technology rather than headcount to deliver service. Modern service delivery emphasizes deploying technology to scale operations and reduce costs. Consequently, service leaders are actively managing technology investments to ensure maximum return on investment. In response, a significant percentage of service leaders now dedicate more time to learning about technology than they did a year ago.
Secondly, there is a growing acceptance of AI, setting higher expectations for effortless service. As AI capabilities and accuracy advance, customer openness to AI in customer service is expected to increase. Customer expectations for seamless, low-effort service experiences enabled by AI will rise with its continued integration into daily life.
Lastly, there is a greater expectation to deliver value and growth, not just efficiency. Service and support leaders are prioritizing revenue growth through new sales, ranking it just behind customer satisfaction and ahead of operational efficiency. Most leaders are now focusing more on revenue generation than they did a year ago.
The convergence of these trends presents a set of challenges that service leaders must address.
Achieving tech ROI in a complex environment is one such challenge. Service and support leaders who take on more responsibility for tech investments are accountable for realizing revenue gains. The orchestration of new technologies into existing tech stacks creates greater complexity, raising expectations for operational excellence and customer experience.
Meeting expectations for instant answers with conversational AI is another challenge. Service and support leaders will need to shift focus to unified-channel, multimodal solutions. These orchestrated solutions must offer seamless text, audio, video, and live support to meet the demand for instant responses via conversational interfaces.>
Additionally, restructuring the service organization to achieve more value from customer interactions beyond resolution is crucial. As organizations remove and redistribute low-value interactions, they must reorganize to support complex, value-enhancing engagements with customers. For example, by merging self-service and assisted service into a unified system, teams and processes can work toward the same service enablement goals.
To overcome these challenges and realize their vision, service and support leaders should take several recommended actions.
Firstly, they should lead technology initiatives as digital vanguards, building credibility in working with IT and staying engaged throughout digital projects. This involves focusing on strategic tasks and empowering teams to handle details.
Enhancing conversational service with knowledge management is also essential. Leaders should optimize knowledge management for bot use by collaborating across functions to access content and tailoring the information for bot consumption.
Finally, using data to enhance customer value and identify growth opportunities is crucial. By analyzing service data, leaders can learn from past interactions, predict trends, and enhance current customer experiences. Identifying specific use cases, such as lead generation, for data from service interactions can help achieve broader enterprise goals of increasing revenue and fostering growth opportunities.
The emergence of generative AI presents a transformative opportunity for service and support leaders to redefine their function's business value. By embracing technology, mastering new digital capabilities, and addressing the challenges posed by evolving trends, these leaders can drive significant scale in service operations, unlocking digital growth and profitability. In doing so, service and support leaders can become the architects of a future where service not only supports but propels the entire business.