On the one hand, there are lots of straightforward, administrative, repetitive tasks, like address changes, subscription renewals and queries which can be AI’d; on the other hand, there are a number of tasks which call for a human touch, such as complaint handling, cancel saves and upsell opportunities.
The opportunity is to use AI to improve the service and reduce costs, whilst preserving human involvement where it can be deployed to best effect; the challenge is to do this in a way that doesn’t alienate your subscribers.
Talking this week to Paul Hatch, group customer director at Air Business, for an upcoming (sponsored) interview, it was clear that there are a number of steps publishers need to go through when rolling out AI solutions for customer services:
- List the use-cases. What are the specific tasks your customer services team has to handle?
- Map the customer journey for each use-case. What are the steps your customer has to go through to successfully complete each use-case?
- Decide which use-cases can be handled, in full or in part, by AI.
- Explore your AI options. Liaise with your IT team / bureau / software provider.
- Test & learn. Proceed on a use-case by use-case basis; run the old approach and new approach in parallel and always have a roll-back position.
- Provide a feedback loop. Subscribers need to have a highly visible feedback option – a means of telling you that something is not working or they are not happy.
- Review performance regularly…
Two other things stood out from our chat. Firstly, you should always put the customer’s needs first when planning changes and, secondly, you must avoid ‘dead ends’ at all costs. Subscribers must not be left in limbo – there must always be a way out. Trapped or bamboozled subscribers will crucify you on Trustpilot…
(Finally, on the subject of AI, our ‘AI Special - Q&A’ webinar is on Tuesday, 18th November. Click here for more information and to register.)
You can catch James Evelegh’s regular column in the InPubWeekly newsletter, which you can register to receive here.
