Generative AI in Practice

8REINVENTING CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT THROUGH INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS

As we've already seen in this book, the customer service function stands to be revolutionized by GenAI, particularly by text-and-speech models. But customer service isn't the only aspect of customer engagement that can benefit from GenAI; through new personalized offerings, preventive interventions, and intelligent products and services, GenAI will transform how brands interact with their customers. In short, GenAI offers unparalleled opportunities for personalization, responsiveness, and increased customer satisfaction.

Let's explore how GenAI can bring brands and their customers closer together.

Generative AI in Customer Service

In Chapter 3, we saw how UK energy supplier, Octopus Energy, has deployed ChatGPT in customer service – to the extent that the bot now handles 44% of customer enquiries, does the work of 250 people, and receives higher customer satisfaction ratings than human customer service agents.¹ It's a prime example of how contact centers will increasingly incorporate GenAI chat and voice tools to deal with straightforward, easily repeatable tasks.

The capabilities of GenAI

You may think customers don't want to talk to bots, but the Octopus Energy example shows that GenAI tools can deliver impressive results and bring a new level of responsiveness to customer service bots. Traditional AI offerings (like some of the not-very-intelligent chatbots you might have interacted with) rely on rules-based ...