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AI in customer service: why human employees remain indispensable

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Why work with us:

– We improve your accessibility
– We enhance your customer experience
– We increase your efficiency

Want to know how we’ve been using AI to enhance the customer experience for years?

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“With Pegamento, we found not just a supplier, but a true partner in change. Thanks to their expertise and our joint DevOps approach, we have made great strides in a short time. The technology supports our people so they can focus on where they make a difference: personal contact with entrepreneurs.”

Laila de Rooij
Director of Valuable Customer Contact
Chamber of Commerce

According to research and consulting firm Gartner, no Fortune 500 company will have completely agentless customer service by 2028. Despite the rapid growth of AI in customer service and far-reaching automation, the human factor remains crucial to customer experience and loyalty.

Where AI is often predicted to completely replace the human customer service representative, Gartner shows that this scenario is both unrealistic and undesirable.

“AI and automation are changing the way organizations serve customers, but human employees are irreplaceable in handling complex situations and building lasting relationships,”

Kathy Ross, Senior Director Analyst at Gartner Customer Service & Support

The future of customer service: hybrid customer contact

In the coming years, the role of AI in customer service will continue to grow. AI technology is excellent at handling routine questions and structured processes. But for complex customer questions, exceptions and emotionally charged situations, the human employee remains the key to success.

Gartner predicts that by 2027, half of the organizations that had committed to drastically reducing their service personnel will reverse those plans. The reason: completely agentless customer service is proving impractical.

AI as a supplement, not a replacement

The organizations leading the way, according to Gartner, are those that deploy AI for efficiency and scalability, while employees focus on valuable customer interactions.

Ross adds:

“The most successful organizations leverage AI to increase efficiency, but put their human talent to work in the moments that really matter. That sets them apart from the rest and leads to lasting customer loyalty.”

What does this mean for your organization?

For service and support leaders, the challenge lies in finding the right balance. Specifically, this means:

  • Use AI in customer service to automate routine work and respond faster.
  • Invest in human employees so they can focus on complex customer inquiries and relationship building.
  • Opt for hybrid customer contact, where people and technology reinforce each other.

At Pegamento, we see daily how this balance helps organizations future-proof their customer service. Solutions such as AI-driven mail routing, transcription and chatbots increase speed and scalability, while human employees ensure the personalized customer experience.

Example of AI-driven customer contact

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Ernst Vegter-Business consultant Pegamento

Ernst Vegter

Business Consultant

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Hospitality is one of my deepest motivations.
Not surprisingly, of course, customer service is a common thread in my career. Aspects of hospitality is being able to connect, to facilitate but mainly to make someone feel genuinely welcome. My intuition is my greatest asset to be able to put myself in the shoes of a guest. A customer is my guest.

Fed by various senses, an image forms around the client. I listen to what is being said, watch facial expressions, taste the underlying tone and get a feel for the challenge to be addressed. An image literally forms on my retina. I have to be able to see it. If I can see it, I can create it.

In this, the trick is to pursue simplicity, give the client a warm feeling that the problem is understood, receive good advice, facilitated and carefully guided to the solution. Trust, connect and unburden.

The feeling when a guest arrives at your hotel after a long tiring journey, can sit in front of the fireplace, be handed a good glass of wine and stare carefree at the fire. My guest knows it will be okay.

This piece was written by Ernst Vegter, working as a Business Consultant at Pegamento.

Ger Koedam-Communication & Marketing Pegamento

Ger Koedam

Marketing & Communications

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How can I help you? That’s pretty much the first question I ask when talking to people who are curious about our services. In such a conversation, the use of senses is very important. Because not everyone is the same. One person thinks in images, while for another words are important or how something feels. For me, sight and hearing are the most beautiful senses, because both eyes and ears absorb information and can convey or process emotions.

Why hearing? Because listening is essential in contact. And it’s the key to unlocking valuable insights.

I developed this skill early on. As a child, I enjoyed radio plays on the radio, bringing the stories to life in my head.

Rob Roode-Research Development

Rob Roode

Research & Development

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Recognizing and automating patterns. Tasks we are constantly working on when implementing our robots at Pegamento. My 2 Drentsche Patrijshonden are hunting dogs and certainly not robots. The hunting instinct and intuition is basically in their genes. Continuing to offer new forms of training has taught them to recognize and act independently in hunting situations. Even “unsupervised,” even if I’m not around.

But when you try to teach a brain something, it also starts to see things you don’t expect. Dogs pick up on the slightest deviation in your voice or directions. To start recognizing that and correcting it again is perhaps the most complex challenge. But in our work, for the wonderful clients for whom we get to work, it often yields the most beautiful new insights!

This piece was written by Rob, founder of Pegamento and in charge of Marketing and R&D.

Serge Poppes-CEO Pegamento

Serge Poppes

CEO

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Feeling. That’s the best thing Pegamento stands for. Feeling for technology in the broadest sense of the word. Not only feeling for the exciting stuff like AI, but also for the basics of communication.

The very best part of my job is selling, listening, translating and thinking about what really matters. We bring the digital transformation with a great team!
The diversity of our team, how sharp we are, but especially the wonderful things we get to make makes me feel extremely good. Hence, I intuitively chose the sense of “feeling.

Feeling gives life and differentiation!

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