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About 64% of consumers would avoid businesses that use artificial intelligence (AI) in their customer support.
However, another survey by Gartner reveals that 60% of customer service and support leaders feel pressured to integrate AI into their roles. While they must acknowledge consumer concerns regarding AI, they also can’t afford to fall behind or risk losing customers by failing to adapt.
For Help Scout CEO and co-founder, Nick Francis, this represents a critical decision point for every business, but brands don’t have to choose one or the other. In fact, striking a balance between the two is easily achievable — so long as brands approach the problem with the right intentions.
In our interview, Nick explains how businesses can adopt an AI-first strategy while remaining customer-first and preserving their brand’s personal touch.
Who Is Nick Francis?
Nick is the co-founder and CEO of Help Scout, a customer-first service software platform used by customer-centric organizations worldwide. He started launching businesses at the age of 15 and has specialized in product design, customer experience, and building a thoughtful, thriving company. He believes a business can only fulfill its market potential by balancing profit and purpose.
Help Scout has been at the forefront of customer-first support for 13 years. It recently revealed two new features to help businesses improve customer experiences: AI Drafts and AI Answers.
These features allow businesses to automate the drafting of speedy responses based on past conversations and using a brand’s knowledge base.
While AI solutions like these can improve customer support, Nick says they are only meant to enhance, not replace, personal touch and interaction.
“AI-first is the latest phrase used to describe the type of product that puts distance between a business and the customer to save a buck. These products make lofty promises about cost savings and efficiency, but the brand suffers in the long term,” he explains.
Prioritizing Customer Interests Over Cost-Cutting
So, if businesses want to maintain personal customer interactions while adopting AI technologies, they have to remember their primary goals, Nick says.
“What’s more important than the technology is your goal. When implementing something new, is your primary goal to reduce costs or provide great customer service? Maybe you can do both, but which one is the priority?
At Help Scout, we focus on companies that want to provide great customer service, and AI can still play a huge role for them,” he adds.
For example, AI Drafts — which uses conversation history and content from your help center to draft responses to customer inquiries — operates like a co-pilot for the user.
While AI provides initial suggestions, each response still undergoes human review to ensure accuracy and consistency. This creates a seamless experience for both the user and the customer.
Overcoming Reluctance Toward AI and Chatbots
But, as Nick points out, people are reluctant to use AI and chatbots because of the limitations of older models.
“Co-pilot experiences are a different paradigm and take getting used to. It’s never easy to ask people to change their workflow. People are also reluctant to use chatbots because the previous generation was so bad, but we’re starting to see incredibly positive results when folks are willing to use them.
It’s just going to take time, and as builders, we have to keep pushing hard to improve the quality of large language model (LLM)-powered products and build trust,” he says.
To separate the great brands from everyone else, businesses must recognize that their customers are the most important stakeholders. As such, this should be reflected in a brand's approach towards customer support and beyond.
“It informs not only their customer support strategy, but also the products they make, the people they hire, and their long-term success.
Leading indicators of a successful customer-first support strategy include metrics like response time, resolution time, and CSAT ratings.
However, what separates good brands from great ones are the lagging indicators: NPS, retention, word-of-mouth referrals, branded searches, and market sentiment,” he adds.
Enhancing Human Support with AI
To this end, Nick says the best AI products to consider are the ones that boost customer satisfaction and make teams more efficient.
“If you implement new AI tooling and see a decline in customer satisfaction, it’s a red flag, even if the team is more efficient.
The opposite is also true. Once both categories are trending in a positive direction, you’ll know that you found the right balance,” he explains.
He adds that businesses should also consider getting to know their support teams more if they believe LLMs can replace them.
“They are probably a lot more knowledgeable and capable than you are giving them credit for. It’s never been more important to have a great customer support team. A great team will make the most of the technology,” he says.
To ensure that AI tools are used to enhance and not replace human elements, Nick warns that businesses should be careful.
For instance, Help Scout decided early on that its AI assistant, AI Answers, would never block access to a human. This allows the customer to choose between using the AI assistant or human support.
“People aren’t stupid — if they have a question with an easy answer, the AI assistant is a better option. But it’s nice they don’t have to go through a frustrating process to access a human being when needed,” he adds.
Measuring the Success of AI in Customer Service
While AI Answers is still in beta, Nick says the tool has already reduced inbound support volume between 25% and 30% among a few customers. This result is a testament to how AI can improve efficiency in customer support without compromising the quality of service.
“We’ve spent the last year iterating on the quality of that experience and are really proud of results like that. They speak to what I mentioned earlier — happier customers and greater efficiency for the team. The goal of our AI products is to achieve both,” he shares.
He adds that products like Help Scout are poised to create more value for businesses and support teams while prioritizing customer-first values.
Nick thinks there will be a lot of opportunities over the next five years for companies that want to stand out from the competition and invest in great customer service.
He says the current innovation cycle is very exciting, adding that Help Scout is poised to create more value for businesses and support teams while continuing to prioritize customer-first values.
“For customer-first businesses, I expect the customer support function to evolve somewhat and focus more on content creation to improve the effectiveness of self-service channels.
I also think that identifying trends in customer feedback is going to be a lot easier than it’s been in previous years, which can inform better business decisions,” he says.
As the Gartner survey pointed out, the customer service and support department is vital to preserving loyalty and shaping brand perceptions.
Despite concerns that AI may make problem-solving more challenging, service and support executives should demonstrate to clients that AI can improve the customer experience, rather than present another obstacle.
