Customers of communications service providers (CSP) say they prefer to interact with artificial intelligence-powered chatbots in lieu of speaking with a live, human agent via chat or over the phone, according to the findings of a new survey.
The survey, conducted by CSG, evaluated responses from more than 1,000 subscribers of home Internet, pay television and wireless phone, among others CSPs. The majority of respondents — 85 percent — said they preferred interacting with AI-powered chatbots and similar tools over live agents when they encounter an issue with or have a question about their service.
The preference for AI chatbots over live representatives skews more toward older respondents, with subscribers who identify as Generation Z (Gen Z) and Millennials more likely to engage with AI chatbots compared with Baby Boomers and Generation X (Gen X), who preferred live agents.
More than half of those surveyed said AI-powered chatbots were their specific preference for resolving an issue, while 36 percent said they were open to using AI-powered mobile apps. Thirty-two percent said AI-powered responses over e-mail were acceptable, while 30 percent said the same of AI-powered assistants who answered questions over the phone.
If companies use AI-powered customer service solutions, they should strive to ensure those tools get things right the first time. Sixty-five percent of respondents said they expected AI-powered solutions to deliver a fast outcome, and 76 percent said a frustrating experience with an AI chatbot or similar solution would impact their decision to stay with a company.
Most said their concerns with AI-powered solutions involved their ability to solve complicated problems, understand the specific situation a customer is in, and deliver an accurate response and outcome.
Delivering accurate outcomes can be fulfilled in part by better investments in allowing AI-powered solutions to access internal data, something that could be stymied by privacy issues and other complicated factors.
In a comparable survey published by IDC earlier this week, most of the 151 CSPs evaluated said they believed allowing generative AI solutions to access internal data was needed to realize the full potential of those products, but only around 19 percent of them had actually done so to the fullest extent necessary.
