AI Can’t Replace Basic Human Skills Needed In Customer Service

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One of the most talked about technologies in the world today is artificial intelligence (AI). A basic definition of AI is systems or machines simulating human intelligence tasks. Companies that have successfully integrated AI into their operations had to come to this conclusion at some point: AI can’t replace humans.

Various basic human skills are needed to attract and retain customers, solve their issues, and guarantee their satisfaction. But even with evidence proving we’re a long way away from an AI takeover in customer service, many people still fear their jobs are at risk.

What do you think? Will AI eliminate the need for humans in customer service?

Human Touch is Essential for Customer Service

Although there’s a lot of speculation about AI taking over humans in customer service, it isn’t going to happen. The human touch is still essential to successful customer service. This is because many customer service interactions require human connection to navigate. And AI tools can’t communicate on a human-to-human level.

Also, regardless of your job in customer service, versatile hard and soft skills are fundamental for success. Hard skills refer to quantifiable skills, while soft skills combine characteristics and behaviours that are harder to teach.

Happy customer

Technical skills are important. But soft skills are even more critical for customer service because these interactions are human-centric. Here are some hard and soft skills AI can’t replace:

Emotional intelligence

Even though we’re working toward creating more emotionally tuned AI tools, we’re nowhere near them fully grasping emotional intelligence and connection as humans do.

Emotional intelligence is crucial for customer service because it helps you look at things from your customer’s perspectives and empathize with what they’re going through. This makes the interaction more genuine and solution-oriented, which leads to a good customer experience.

Leadership

Just like emotional intelligence, it’s nearly impossible for AI to mimic leadership. AI tools are programmed. So, they only do what we tell them to do. 

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But customer service is ever-changing. In addition, most people working in customer service can attest to how unpredictable days are. Therefore, you need people able to think on their feet and resolve conflicts with customers for customer service to be impactful. In other words, you need leaders.

Communication

Chatbots are a form of artificial intelligence. They’re trained to have human-like conversations with customers that engage with them. Although chatbots can be incredibly convenient for customers, they can only take a conversation so far. 

Many customer interactions require a live customer service rep. And many people still prefer communicating with a real person.

Decision-making

An everyday use of AI is data collection. Various AI-powered data collection and analysis tools arm customer service specialists with information that helps them improve their customer interactions.

AI tools may provide the data that make decisions more insightful, but ultimately, it’s humans that make the decisions.

Bilingualism

We may be able to program AI tools to understand and collect data in different languages. But a bilingual customer service employee is much more valuable, especially in real-time interactions. They can recognize when someone may speak the same language as them and offer to use the customer’s native language, so the experience is much more comfortable.

Project management

Customer service is multi-layered. Many tasks and projects are going on simultaneously, and that’s doable for humans. However, AI can’t manage multiple complex projects simultaneously, let alone the people behind them. So, customer service workers are vital for project management.

AI Works Alongside Humans, Not in Place of Them

According to the World Economic Forum, “by 2025, the time spent on current tasks at work by humans and machines will be equal.”

AI working alongside humans is a more realistic picture of future workplaces. It’s also the most productive one. When humans work with AI, customer service experiences can be more efficient and tailored to each individual customer.

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While AI tools handle the more technical, repetitive tasks that require high accuracy, customer service employees can focus on tasks that require creative thinking and human connection.

For example, let’s say a customer is engaging with a chatbot on your website but isn’t getting the answers they need to make a purchase. In that case, your chatbot can connect the customer to a live agent, and they can take over the interaction to ensure the customer gets a deeper level of understanding that hopefully results in a purchase.

It’s also important to note that AI tools need humans to program them. So, AI will rely on humans in more ways than one, further solidifying the reality of collaboration in the workplace.

Conclusion

Although AI is proving more powerful for the workplace than initially imagined, it’s unlikely for this technology to ever replace humans entirely in customer service. Humans have various hard and soft skills integral to successful customer service interactions that AI tools can’t fully grasp.

So, instead of obsessing over a highly unlikely AI takeover, you should welcome the idea of working alongside AI to better your performance and the customer experience

Dan Matthews
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