Survey reveals AI can significantly improve service and support

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The vast majority of survey respondents believe AI can significantly improve service and support, with more than three-quarters of all businesses surveyed at least considering deploying AI for that purpose.

At the same time, respondents face several challenges as they look to transform their service and support organisations, primarily finding the necessary budget, overcoming the fear of failure, and a perceived lack of internal resources and expertise needed to move forward.

“The tremendous benefits of AI-powered service and support, in terms of improved self-service, reduced labour requirements and lower costs, are widely recognised by today’s business leaders,” said Wai Wong, CEO of Serviceaide. “However, some companies seem to be waiting for the right recipe for success before they take action.”

“Vendors need to align their offerings with the perceived challenges and needs of IT and service and support organisations, Wong added. “Vendors need to deliver proven, cost-efficient AI service management solutions that deliver rapid ROI with ease of deployment and operation.”

The survey of more than 100 business managers and senior executives finds that 85% of respondents believe service and support management is either very important (66%) or important (19%) to improving end-user productivity and cost efficiency within their organisations. The top business areas cited for improving service and support are customer service (78%), sales and marketing (69%), and IT service management (59%).

Among key findings are:

• 81% of respondents say their company is at least considering deploying AI to improve service and support management.
  
• Reducing workloads and costs is perceived as the number one benefit of deploying AI (cited by 32% of respondents), followed by product improvements (26%), and increased employee productivity (19%).
  
• The top three roadblocks to transforming service and support are budget (69%), risk (48%), and lack of internal resources (45%)
  
• More than 80% of companies surveyed say senior management is looking for ways to deploy AI for business improvement, including 16% who have made AI innovation a significant enterprise mandate, 52% who are focused on adopting selective AI applications, and 16% who are in the early exploratory phase.

Actioning on AI-driven service and support

Given the widespread interest in AI service and support transformation, the vast majority of businesses need to chart their course of action. Serviceaide believes change can take place in achievable, incremental steps that deliver near-term ROI and long-term transformation.

Download the Pulse Report: AI's Impact on Service and Support-2024