CS Transformation Report by Intercom

[ unlocking infinite scalability ]

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[ unlocking infinite scalability ]

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[ unlocking infinite scalability ]

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Until now, business growth was limited by customer support headcount: as you gained more customers or expanded into new markets, your support inbox would grow exponentially, too. In order to keep pace with the influx in volume, you’d need to add more agents – or risk damaging your newfound popularity with poor customer experiences.

But this approach is costly, time-consuming, and unsustainable. What’s worse, it ultimately caps your business’s potential and slows down innovation.

Thanks to AI-first customer service, this linear growth model has finally been broken. Support leaders and their organizations no longer have to grow their team at pace to meet demand; instead, they can rely on AI tools to manage support volume without compromising on CX. 

Essentially, this multiplies support teams’ impact, enabling their businesses to scale while still delivering exceptional customer experiences that drive adoption, retention, and revenue. 

So why are support teams rushing to adopt AI?

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One reason could be that AI-first customer service has broken the traditional linear growth model – and redefined the economics of customer service.

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Provide better, faster, and cheaper customer service Provide better, faster, and cheaper customer service Provide better, faster, and cheaper customer service Provide better, faster, and cheaper customer service Provide better, faster, and cheaper customer service Provide better, faster, and cheaper customer service

54% of support teams feel like their company/exec team view them as a value driver

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CHAPTER 3: SUPPORT TEAMS NEED CUTTING-EDGE TOOLS

81%

81%

81% of support teams agree that AI is changing the economics of customer service.

At last, it’s possible to provide better, faster, and cheaper customer service instead of needing to pick just two.

54%

54%

This means that customer support’s role as a major lever for business growth can finally be fully realized. But are support teams feeling it?

Just over half (54%) say that their team is viewed as a value driver rather than a cost center. That’s not bad for a function that’s traditionally been seen as a cost center – but given the leading role customer service teams are going to play in transforming customer experiences through the use of AI, we believe it’s lower than it should be. As such, we expect this perception to change significantly over the coming year.

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Demonstrating the ROI of AI

It’s not always easy to know where to start with quantifying ROI. Our research showed that only 44% of support teams are currently able to measure the ROI of AI in customer service, while an almost equal amount (40%) say they can’t – and a further 16% aren’t sure.

Are you currently able to measure the ROI of AI in customer service?

yes

no