Hey there,

Alongside the excitement about AI revolutionizing the customer service industry is the very real fear that it might absorb people's jobs.

This fear has accompanied every major breakthrough throughout history; from the printing press, to photography, to television (cue Video Killed The Radio Star by The Buggles). Change is scary, but, in hindsight, every one of these innovations has led to new skills, areas of expertise, and roles for people to take advantage of.

On the Intercom blog, Paul Adams, our Chief Product Officer, writes about the opportunities AI might bring to those working in the customer service industry. He sees three potential developments to the way customer service teams work:

Teams will probably get smaller, but there will also be less attrition – and reduced turnover will give managers more time to focus on their team's development.
Customer service roles will become more interesting and fulfilling, requiring skilful human connection and deep problem-solving.
New jobs will begin to emerge within customer service as we begin to figure out what a blend of AI, automated, and human customer service will look like – and orchestrate, finetune, and streamline the ideal mix.

Essentially, we can look forward to AI removing many of the mundane, repetitive tasks that occupy too much of a support rep’s day – leaving room for career development, engaging customer conversations, and problem-solving that utilizes the unique skill set of a customer service expert.

Change brings opportunity,

What we've been doing

Beth McEntee

A personal touch: Intercom’s guide to CX personalization

CX personalization isn’t just about addressing your customers by name in an email. It’s an end-to-end, data-driven strategy that takes into account customers’ needs, preferences, and behaviors to deliver relevant experiences across all touchpoints in the customer journey.

We’ve put together eight steps for building out a personalized customer experience; from collecting first-party customer data, to designing personalized communication flows, to assembling cross-functional teams.

How many have your team implemented?

Liam Geraghty

CX expert Jon Picoult on shaping memories, not just experiences

According to CX expert Jon Picoult, if you’re aspiring to satisfy your customers, you’re aspiring to mediocrity. Companies that are content to merely satisfy are probably not putting much effort into creating end-to-end experiences that delight, enthrall, and excite customers.

On the podcast, he explores how companies can shape customers’ perceptions and expectations. Here are the top takeaways:

Addressing customer experience across the customer journey reduces the need for reactive customer support, allowing your team to redirect resources to higher-value activities.
Companies that excel in CX show three times higher shareholder return than those that don’t.
Companies can use the same strategies to engage both their customers and their customer service teams – it’s all about seamless, effortless experiences.

Kuba Niechciał

Support goes global: Localization for customer service teams

The process of localization involves tailoring your product to fit the needs of a local culture and language. It’s an essential element of a high-quality customer experience, but it’s also a must-have for your team.

Giving teammates the opportunity to work through the language they’re most comfortable with will improve morale, productivity, and retention. We’ve made some updates to enable even more of our customers to offer a localized workplace experience to their customer service team within Intercom.

Intercom now supports French, German, Spanish and Portuguese across the following functions:

Our next-generation Inbox with real-time dashboards, where our customers spend the majority of their time.
Reports, Articles, Contacts – everything that is necessary for day-to-day customer service outside of answering conversations.
Sending invitations, Settings, Sign-in and Billing – for administration purposes.

Paul Adams

How AI will change the nature of customer service work

Any report predicting the “jobs to be replaced by AI” will tell you that top of the list of endangered roles is the customer service representative. Paul Adams, Chief Product Officer at Intercom, believes this is an overly simplistic outlook.

On the Intercom blog, he lays out three developments he thinks we’ll see as AI collides with the customer service industry.

Customer service teams will get smaller, but with lower turnover, and more time for managers to invest in their team.
Customer service jobs will become more rewarding and skillful.
New types of customer service jobs will emerge.

2023 is a year of incredible change, but that change will bring new opportunities.

Response Time: Vol. 3

Here it is – the third instalment in our Response Time series, where we chat with customer service leaders to find out what they think about support, book recommendations, and whether or not a burger is a sandwich (yes, really!)

Read on for a productivity tip from Libor Bitala, Head of Support at ROI Hunter...

What's going on in customer service?

Scaling Up by Verne Harnish: Recommended by this week's Response Time interviewee, Libor Bitala, Scaling Up dives into the major areas every company must get right, and explores how to achieve alignment across your business.
6 benefits of AI chatbots: Anything that makes us faster is good for business, but here are some of the other major positives to recruiting AI to your support team.
The Human-AI CX Partnership: Our very own VP of Customer Support, Declan Ivory, appears on Shep Hyken's Amazing Business Radio to discuss the technology driving change and innovation in customer experience.

Tweet of the week

This week's tweet comes from founder of The Twenty Minute VC Harry Stebbings.

Managing a customer service team can be one of the most challenging, but rewarding jobs out there. Hear more from Harry Stebbings on the Inside Intercom podcast.