You’re employed in buyer help.
Some individuals assume meaning you’re employed a checkout or blast fragrance at passing consumers in a division retailer, nevertheless it’s not that form of customer support.
Your work occurs on-line, over chat or e mail, generally on the cellphone. You deal with all the pieces from “I forgot how one can log in once more!!!” to advanced investigations of bizarre bugs particular to the net browser embedded in fridge doorways.
Perhaps you began out on this profession, or perhaps you adopted a winding path right here through a psych diploma you by no means actually used (however are nonetheless paying for) and a short interval the place you thought you may turn out to be a sculptor for an off-brand wax museum.
No matter your path, no matter your story, you end up right here, now, proper at this second — this second when all anyone needs to speak about is AI and the way quickly it’ll substitute your job. Despite the fact that it is already apparent that AI will shake up all types of industries, it positive seems like numerous companies will begin with buyer help. New AI-powered apps every day promise to “drive down your customer support prices,” and consultants seduce CEOs with the dream of a human-free group.
No shock then that the people who find themselves most single-mindedly bullish about an AI-centric future are the individuals most insulated from the financial impact (or who a minimum of imagine themselves to be.) They’ll’t know the way it will all shake out in 10 or 15 years, and neither can we.
We don’t reside sooner or later; now we have to take care of the current. We’re all going to wish to determine our personal paths from proper right here to … someplace on the market. You could be enthusiastic about working with AI instruments or anxious about how they are going to be used (or most definitely someplace in between). Nonetheless you’re feeling, you aren’t alone.
So this isn’t an article about how AI will change the world over the subsequent decade. It’s about how AI may change your working life this 12 months — or subsequent 12 months — and what you are able to do about it.
AI and your buyer help job
Let’s begin right here: Generative AI, together with ChatGPT and its many cousins, just isn’t an extinction-level risk for people working in customer support. No matter occurs, there shall be loads of work for individuals to do in serving prospects. A lot of individuals choose to take care of individuals.
Precisely what that human service work includes, how many individuals are employed to do it, and which expertise shall be required of them — these are questions we can’t absolutely reply in the present day.
What we are able to do is discover the obtainable info, study our social historical past, and make some knowledgeable guesses about the way forward for customer support work and the potential paths in entrance of the individuals working within the subject in the present day.
That is the primary in a collection of articles to assist buyer help professionals chart their profession programs via the age of AI. On this article we’ll unfold the map, and in future items we are going to focus extra deeply on the totally different paths you may select to observe and what you’ll must benefit from the journey.
The 4 paths for help professionals
The place will your help profession go subsequent? Standing nonetheless just isn’t an choice, as a result of AI goes to shift the bottom beneath you. You’ll select a route to journey, or a selection shall be made for you by the forces of both market or supervisor.
Feeling like you don’t have any company in your profession, and even in your life, is a recipe for despair. The reality is you do have choices, and you’ll steer your self, a minimum of slightly.
We see 4 distinct instructions you may head in. Consider these as compass factors. You don’t have to move due north, nevertheless it’s good to know the place it’s and which manner you’re going through.
1. Transfer UP right into a administration function
Comply with the traditional profession development mannequin by turning into a individuals supervisor and taking over larger ranges of accountability. You may turn out to be a group chief, a help lead, or a director of service. Maybe you’ll be in a help operations function, determining techniques and processes extra suited to a working world which incorporates generative AI.
Administration roles may even be formed and augmented by AI, however the day-to-day work is much less more likely to be drastically modified. We’ve acquired loads of sources to assist new and aspiring help leaders and extra to return.