How to transform after-sales service: Real-life results for auto solution providers
Bosch Automotive Aftermarket modernized its customer service with SAP Service Cloud in order to provide a top-flight after sales experience.
Companies are eager to integrate generative AI and automation into their operations, and customer service is one of the first areas they’re focused on. According to Gartner, 47% of AI-mature companies see customer service as one of the top three business functions benefiting from AI.
AI’s ability to improve both service agent and customer experiences—while driving operational efficiency—is what makes it truly powerful stuff.
According to Simon Bamberger, Managing Director and Partner at Boston Consulting Group (BCG), generative AI unlocks two primary sources of value in customer support:
- Reduce service volume with improved self service and better access to knowledge.
- Shorten service resolution times by providing agents with AI-driven issue resolution and next-best action support
Using AI in customer service: 4 stages
In order to get the biggest business benefits from AI in customer service, businesses need to look at the entire service value chain and figure out how to use AI across the various stages.
Bamberger outlined four areas:
- Pre-empt: Prevent issues before they arise
- Self-heal: Fix issues before the customer notices them and without any customer effort
- Self-help: Empower customers with AI-based tools and information to self-solve their issues.
- Support response: Enable support teams to resolve customer issues as efficiently as possible
Many organizations start by focusing on use cases that boost agent productivity, such as issue summarization and automated email drafting.
It’s a good idea to start small, learn from your experiences and expand to new areas in a controlled way. That way, you can start getting some of the benefits while preparing for other use cases that may require more AI engineering as well as integration with other business functions.
Early adopters pave the way
Companies using AI in customer service are already getting results. According to BCG, early adopters are:
- Reducing the time it takes to create a case summary by 80%
- Spending 80% less time typing when resolving requests
- Seeing productivity increases of 10% to 20%.
Bosch Automotive Group is a great example of an innovative company that’s getting remarkable results by using AI to improve after sales service. The global company has used the technology to simply agents’ work by automating case categorization and identifying similar cases.
Now, there’s an opportunity to make these automated use cases even stronger, as generative AI can help handle the complexities and variations more accurately, improving case identification and categorization.
AI transformation: It’s all about people
As with every technology, successful integration isn’t just about the technology. It’s about transforming organizational processes and culture.
Trying to use AI while continuing with old ways of working won’t produce the customer service benefits you’re looking for.
Bamberger recommends companies take a 10/20/70 approach. This is where 10% of the success comes from the algorithm and 20% from the data and technology, but 70% is related to operational transformation.
Transforming an organization includes a broad range of activities, including process redesign, employee training and education, change management, and cross-functional orchestration.
The potential for AI to redefine customer service is immense. By looking into the whole support value chain and strategically integrating AI, organizations can achieve tremendous productivity gains, boost customer satisfaction, and drive a better bottom line.
