20
Larger teams are AI laggards
In your day-to-daywork, are you using any AI tools or features to provide customer support?
With the exception of Brazil, no more than a quarter of teams are using AI, according to agents. Full-time and all-outsourced teams are most likely to use AI, with nearly a third of both categories leveraging AI tools or features. This is surely connected to the fact that these teams face the most pressure to optimize operations and cut costs by leaning on bots to handle repetitive requests. Small to midsize support teams are also more likely to be using AI, and between a quarter and a third use bots. Those teams are able to be more nimble in adopting new technology, which is more difficult to do at the enterprise level.
23%
1-9 agents
31%
10-49 agents
35%
50-99 agents
18%
100-499 agents
14%
500+ agents
0
10
20
30
40
% of surveyed customer service agents
85% of large support teams aren’t using AI
Agents have some awareness of AI’s key benefits. When asked about its impact, agents think mostly that AI will allow them to implement 24/7 service and that it has the potential to reduce costs. But they’re also aware of drawbacks: About 40% also agree that it takes significant time and resources to implement and that AI might replace human agents. Companies started in the past 20 years are more than twice as likely to use AI 38% of companies founded after 1998 use AI 16% of companies founded before 1998 use AI
Survey findings indicate that larger support teams face the biggest opportunity to start leveraging AI, since almost 85% of larger teams aren’t using it. This matches data from companies using Zendesk, which shows that only 5.3% of enterprise support teams are using AI, compared to 7.6% of midsize teams and 5% of small businesses. Unsurprisingly, companies founded after 1998 are much more likely to use bots. 38% of those companies are using AI, compared to 16% of companies founded before 1998, according to agent survey results.
Please rate your level of agreement to the following statements as it relates to AI’s impact on your day-to-day.
Neutral
Disagree
Agree
AI allows our customers to access support 24/7
8% 8%
43%
49%
AI has the potential to reduce the cost of providing customer support Implementing AI for customer support requires a significant amount of resources (time, financial, etc.) I am concerned that AI will replace
50%
42%
53%
8%
39%
45%
16%
39%
the need for human agents AI allows me to deliver more personalized support
52%
13%
35%
AI has forced me to learn new skills and handle more complicated issues AI allows me to be more ecient in resolving tickets AI creates more confusion and/or frustration for our customers
35%
54%
11%
34%
56%
11%
31%
54%
15%
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
% of surveyed customer service agents
The Zendesk Customer Experience Trends Report 2019
Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online