Klarna’s OpenAI-powered customer service assistant is making headlines for its promising early results — and the apparent threat to customer service agents' jobs.
Last week, the buy now, pay later provider reported that the AI assistant managed to handle the work of 700 full-time agents during its first month of operation.
But business leaders need to keep the bigger picture in mind when analyzing apparent AI success stories, according to Christina McAllister, senior analyst at Forrester. Four weeks is too little time to determine the long-term impact an AI-led strategy will have on outcomes like customer retention and lifetime value.
Klarna says its AI assistant can handle a range of inquiries in 35 languages and has handled 2.3 million conversations, or two-thirds of customer service chats, since its launch a month ago. The company reported a 25% drop in repeat inquiries with average resolution times of less than 2 minutes, compared to 11 minutes previously.
While these initial results may make going all in on the technology tempting, replacing human agents with AI can open companies up to unnecessary risk in the short term, McAllister said. The technology is improving, but high-profile cases of chatbots going haywire provide examples of why a balanced human and AI strategy is important to mitigate risks.
Klarna says it isn’t cutting humans out of the loop despite the early success of its assistant. Customers can still choose to speak with human agents if they prefer and to handle inquiries that require nuance beyond what AI can provide.
“With the AI assistant, our customer service can operate with fewer people and require significantly less resources,” a Klarna spokesperson told CX Dive in an email. “However, there still is a need for more experienced and senior staff, for example with specialized training in complex or sensitive cases.”
There are other reasons to maintain the human element as well. Senior contact center leaders say their brands only interact one-on-one with a customer two to three times per year on average, McAllister said.
That can represent an enormous volume of calls for a brand with millions of customers, but it offers a few chances to directly engage with consumers. Business leaders, McAllister said, need to ask if the goal of AI assistants is to save money by eliminating that human-to-human experience.
“If so, this strategy appears short-sighted, given both the value consumers place on those customer service interactions, and the limited opportunities to develop one-to-one customer relationships,” McAllister said in an email to CX Dive. “Brands on this path may achieve short-term cost benefits, but risk sacrificing long-term customer value.”
