GenAI (Generative Artificial Intelligence) is the buzzword of the moment – especially within the world of customer experience – but poorly planned and premature AI integration can be damaging. There is jeopardy in simply following the crowd.
GenAI describes algorithms that can create new content, including audio, code, images, text, simulations and videos. Significant focus has been centred on ChatGPT (and similar tools) due to its ability to leverage Large Language Models (LLMs) to answer almost any question.
GenAI as a technology is certainly powerful but to date, there are limited examples of real-world deployments in customer-facing scenarios. GenAI has the functionality to utilise data to respond to questions, however, there is good reason for no widespread adoption in customer support yet.
Firstly, there are a variety of ethical and legal implications around the ability to answer any questions in a customer support context, compounded by the fact that ChatGPT has been found to be prone to ‘hallucinations’.
When we asked ChatGPT (3.5) “What is an AI hallucination?” it responded…
“A hallucination in the context of artificial intelligence is a situation where an AI system generates content, such as text or images, that is imaginative, fictional, or seemingly creative, but not based on factual information. It’s important to note that AI hallucinations are not the result of an AI system’s conscious thought or understanding; instead, they occur when AI models generate content that is not grounded in reality, possibly due to overfitting, data limitations, or a lack of constraints during training.
These hallucinations can sometimes produce bizarre, nonsensical, or inappropriate outputs. Researchers and developers work to reduce such occurrences in AI models for responsible and reliable AI applications”.
With quality and accuracy being imperative for customer support, GenAI is simply not ready to replace a customer service agent.
While GenAI is not yet able to take the jobs of human customer service agents, it can still add value to customer support if businesses properly prepare for its opportunities and pitfalls.
For most businesses, initially, the virtual agent deployment will be limited to supporting customers with simple enquiries. The introduction of an LLM (large language model) layer to automated chat channels can improve the overall experience by delivering more human-like, natural, conversations.
This tempered approach helps to navigate integration complications. We see that many financial services organisations are still in the early stages of their digital transformation roadmaps. Though the idea of seamless omnichannel customer experiences is often cited, true unified experiences remain elusive for most. Multi-channel prevails with some basic chatbots and rare impressive examples of sophistication.
Implementation of GenAI also requires large volumes of data to ingest to effectively support customer conversations. This data is often pulled from a company’s knowledge base, but for this to be effective that knowledge base must consist of high-quality, current, information. This results in a common challenge with organisations struggling to maintain knowledge bases with disparate, legacy systems and subject matter expertise in the minds of individuals.
Above all, one simple fact remains; people (still) want to talk to people. In a 2023 survey of over 4,000 customers, it was discovered that over 77% would choose a phone call as their preferred channel, an increase from 65% in 2020 (CFI Group).
Despite the advancements in technology, GenAI is still unable to provide one of the key elements of customer service, empathy and emotional intelligence. In fact, with the rise of chatbots and GenAI, these uniquely human attributes will become increasingly more valuable.
In today’s experience economy, the impact of a low-quality experience can be costly, hence any journey into automation must proceed with caution.
The current use case for GenAI in customer support and contact centres falls into two categories. GenAI is either used as a complementary tool to provide improved access to information or as a supplementary tool to reduce workload via automation. For insight into how to successfully perform these AI integrations, the consulting division at Davies is well-versed.
GenAI will not replace the role of a customer support agent any time soon, but it can certainly enhance it.
At Davies Consulting Division we help businesses in driving the implementation of GenAI models into workstreams to be as effective as possible. We align this introduction with the recommended regulatory guidelines to ensure companies are building a strong foundation for GenAI in business as we continue to integrate and evolve the expectations of corporate practices.
