Yesterday we already lifted a corner of the veil: Ziptone spoke extensively with Stef van den Oever of Nextview Consulting, a Salesforce implementation partner. Although there are many more applications, he expects that the customer contact sector will mainly respond to FTE reduction and scalability. With complex and unclear cost structures, saving costs will be a challenge. 

 

The windows of CRM and customer contact software providers are bulging and it's AI all the rage. AI has some Steve van den Oever (Group Practice Manager at Nextview Consulting) has all the hallmarks of a hype, but it is certainly not blowing over.

“I expect AI to get the place it deserves in the coming year. For the customer contact industry, AI solutions are one of the enablers to improve customer contact. The customer can be helped better or faster, the employee can be relieved of tasks that do not contribute to someone's career or job satisfaction."

Consumer expectations continue to grow and that has an impact on the B2B market. In that market, it is even more complicated to meet rising expectations. On the other hand, says Van den Oever, companies are looking across the board (so customer contact is no exception) at how costs can be saved to improve margins. Customer contact is a relatively expensive process within organizations. So there is a lot of interest in things like automation and AI.

 

Many customer contact professionals react as if they have been stung by a wasp when you connect customer contact with cost savings. Is the focus on costs in customer contact a taboo?

“In my profession, that taboo does not apply; it is my raison d’être. I talk to organizations about costs and that also includes things like change management and adoption. It is not primarily about fewer people, but about reprioritizing resources. That can mean that jobs disappear – that will happen – and that other jobs and career paths arise. For example, I see AI governance boards emerging in many places, so new work is also emerging in a different field. By the way, I think that the sense of value could really do with returning to the individual. The economy has been doing quite well in recent years. But there is a turnaround now. That means going back to the drawing board: what is the business case behind the work that I do? What is your added value for the organization? That applies to me as a consultant and it also applies to a customer contact employee.”

 

About removing tasks that don’t make someone happy: when you automate simple customer contact, more complex conversations remain, it is often claimed. If managers eliminate the after-work time by introducing automated summarizing, won’t we end up in a situation where employees go from one complex conversation to another without a break?

“I think it’s about a customer with a question that needs to be addressed. I completely agree with you. When customer contacts become more complex, it demands more of your mental capacity. Then you definitely need that breathing space. But it should also be possible, precisely because you gain efficiency. You shouldn’t just let that profit disappear into your pocket. You should let part of those savings come back in the reorganization of the work.”

Where is the greatest potential in the coming year?

Speaking of full windows, the range of AI solutions is growing by the day. Where do you think the greatest potential lies for the coming year?

“I have a hope and I have an expectation. My hope is that AI as a support for the agent will gain the most traction. That can enrich the profession of customer contact employee. What I fear is that the adoption issue around AI solutions will not be approached properly. There is a chance that agents will then see AI as a threat rather than an opportunity.”

If adoption becomes problematic, managers will more likely opt for circumventing moves, Van den Oever expects. One of those is skipping agent-assist solutions and investing more quickly in customer-facing AI agents. That is a risky route, Van den Oever believes, because agent assist is a good way to practice with AI.

There is more than FTE reduction

The industry also seems to be pushing towards selling AI agents that automate processes or replace employees, and less towards agent assist. Van den Oever: “Where technology companies seem to focus primarily on FTE savings and an infinitely scalable workforce, I also like to convince companies of the effect that an AI agent can have as an assistant towards customer service employees. By supporting them well, you give them the focus on the core of their work: contact with the customer.”

Is the industry moving towards large-scale deployment of AI agents then too much ahead of the music?
Van den Oever doesn't think so; there are already many companies that have started experiments. "At the same time, the supply is growing faster and is improving faster than we can keep up," is Van den Oever's experience. "I see that it is relatively easy for customers who have a good knowledge base and where customer contact processes have been largely digitalized to deploy an AI agent. Then we are not talking about three to five years, but rather about a training period of one year after which AI agents can take over three quarters of the workload of employees. However, that should not be our focus."

In that scenario, Van den Oever argues, you turn your customer journey into a digital one-size-fits-all. That customer journey is then admittedly effortless for the organization, but with the cost savings you also eliminate your ability to differentiate. “Every organization then becomes part of a homogeneous group of companies that do the same thing.”

Distinguishing yourself with customer service, how so?

In short, when embracing AI, companies should not forget to think about what they want to differentiate themselves with. Or is it becoming increasingly clear that companies do not want to differentiate themselves with customer service at all, but rather leave that to marketing?

“That could be, but at least think about this issue. Yes, Ryanair's business model works and there is indeed a group of customers who are satisfied with mediocre service and low prices, but it is not my choice.”

 

Also in the window of the chatbot shop: 'implementation is a piece of cake'. How should contact center managers assess this?

The implementation path depends largely on what you want an AI agent to do, says Van den Oever, but you can indeed develop a concept in a month. “For example, an AI agent that helps with contact deflection. Think of a live agent who has to combine information from different sources to provide a good answer to a customer question. That is exactly the sweetspot of GenAI. Anyone who has a good knowledge base can set this up relatively quickly.”

What increases the pace of development is the fact that you can develop AI agents using natural language instead of coding. The downside of this is that coding can be tested and then generates standard output, while AI agents do not. That is why developing AI agents is a matter of continuous development, also because changes in the various supporting systems can lead to different behavior of the agent, warns Van den Oever. That brings us to the costs. Many billions have been invested in AI, not only by the founders of the LLMs, but also by the software providers in the customer contact market. That has to be earned back.

From pay per user to pay per conversation

“Companies can save a lot of costs by piggybacking on the AI ​​platforms of Salesforce, Microsoft, Google or Anthropic,” says Van den Oever. “That way you can buy off a lot of maintenance work and costs. There is a visible shift from billing based on user to billing based on consumption. The former leads to well predictable costs, the latter does not. I notice that companies are reluctant to make decisions because of this. Next year it will become clear whether companies can create more clarity for themselves in this area. In addition, large providers often have multiple billing models for different services, which are all related in AI applications.” That does not make calculating the TCO and ROI any easier.

“Forecasting is getting complicated”

What is particularly difficult in this context is that you cannot always simply switch off AI agents if your usage budget is exceeded. Do you then go back to your old situation? At the moment, for example, you can purchase bundles of AI conversations – and the more you purchase, the lower the price per conversation.

“Opportunity pipelines and weighted value are concepts that have not been translated well to the customer service domain”

Van den Oever says that many companies still find it difficult to accurately predict the consumption volumes for AI. “Forecasting is becoming complicated. It would help if providers came up with better and simpler billing models.”

This problem is particularly big for management who say that turnover has to grow, but customer service cannot grow along with it. “That is really incredibly short-sighted. From the commercial side, there are all kinds of calculation models for forecasting. Opportunity pipelines and weighted value are concepts that have not been translated well to the customer service domain,” says Van den Oever.

There will undoubtedly be some creaking and groaning next year.

“In the meantime, more and more AI solutions are being added, so companies will have to think very carefully about what they are going to do with AI. They will also have to be able to translate that into financial consequences. The technology is growing faster than the entire support for it. It will undoubtedly creak and groan next year. That will lead to beautiful examples and will also bring about disaster stories. It is up to companies like ours to ensure that these are mainly good and solid stories.” (Ziptone/Erik Bouwer)

Customer Experience, Featured