One of the many ways that AI is predicted to change business is in customer support.
Confronting AI customer support
Instead of forcing people to scroll through endless FAQ pages, speculatively consult customer forums, or face interminable waits for customer support representatives, AI chatbots promise to provide an immediate expert response to any query and a surefire fix to any technical issue.
So far, the reality hasn’t lived up to the hype.
News feeds are littered with stories of rogue AI agents making up company policy on the fly.
And customers are still desperate to speak to real humans – with one Harvard Business School study finding that 30-50 per cent of people are willing to wait hours — or even far longer — for a human response over an instant AI one.
AI in Payments
In the world of payment, Klarna has been the AI cause célèbre.
A matter of months ago, the company was evangelising about AI and its benefits.
But it has since evolved it approach — by going back to hiring real people in customer service and emphasising the importance of investing in the quality of human support.
One company that has always been sceptical of AI-enabled customer support is Vienna-based digital payment specialist DIMOCO.
That’s not so much about the capability of AI to diagnose and fix an isolated technical issue. It’s more about the role that customer support plays within the wider customer relationship.
As Bernd Pichler, the firm’s Head of Sales for Cards and Alternative Payment Methods, puts it: “We view every customer support inquiry as a growth opportunity — an opportunity to understand a merchant’s business better, uncover and fix any underlying issues with their payment set-up, meet their needs more effectively, and help them deliver a better service to more customers.
That’s how we manage and grow our business. It’s what we do. We won’t delegate that core task to an AI bot.
Neither will we delegate it to an outsourced or offshore customer support provider. It’s too precious”.
It’s an interesting perspective, and one that’s likely to be most relevant to an acquirer or payment service provider that, like DIMOCO, specialises in smaller businesses and those with more complex payment set-ups.
These mid-sized merchants, especially if they operate in sectors perceived as higher risk, are arguably the most poorly served businesses in the entire payment ecosystem.
Typically, their needs are too complex for an ‘off the shelf’ or ‘entry-level’ acceptance solution. Yet their volumes are too low to warrant the attention of larger, more mainstream providers.
If an acquirer or payment service provider can get the economics right, this type of attentive customer-oriented approach is one that can deliver real value to merchants and consumers alike — by ensuring that payment set-ups are optimised, and any technical hiccups are quickly and painlessly resolved.
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