A Centaur Solution For Customer Support: Amplifying AI Efficiency with Human Empathy

🌈 Abstract

The article discusses the need for implementing more "centaur" solutions - a combination of automation/AI and human support - to enhance customer service experiences, particularly in the context of travel and airline operations. It highlights a personal experience of the author being stuck in an automated system at an airport, unable to resolve the issue through either the website or phone support. The article then proposes a framework for a "centaur-powered support system" that leverages AI and human agents to provide seamless and effective customer support.

🙋 Q&A

[01] Centaur Solutions

1. What are "centaur solutions" as described in the article?

• Centaur solutions refer to a combination of automation/AI and human support, where the two work together to enhance customer service experiences.
• The term "centaur" comes from chess master Garry Kasparov, who argued that a medium-skilled chess player with a good AI system could beat an expert chess player.
• In the context of AI technology, centaurs symbolize a union of human intellect and machine capabilities, with a clear division of labor between the two.

2. How can centaur solutions improve customer support systems?

• AI can help both the humans offering customer support and the people receiving the customer support in the following ways:
  • Provide text updates for customers with limited connectivity
  • Handle initial responses to customer inquiries and transfer to human agents when needed, providing full context
  • Translate and filter customer messages to give support agents choice in how much to see
  • Provide suggested responses and internal system links to help support agents
  • Allow support agents to use chatbots to access internal knowledge resources

3. How does a centaur support system aim to be "calm" technology?

• The system focuses on managing information flows between the user and the technology, ensuring the user receives the right information at the right time in the right format.
• This reduces noise, filters out unnecessary details, and presents information in an easily understandable way to avoid stress or cognitive overload for the user.
• The system emphasizes the regulation of information flowing across boundaries, where the principles of calm technology meet AI.

[02] Airline Customer Support Experience

1. What was the author's personal experience with airline customer support?

• The author was stuck in the connecting flights section of London Heathrow Airport, unable to proceed through the automated ticket scanning system because their ticket wouldn't scan.
• The author's connecting flight on British Airways had been canceled, but the airport staff could not help them get a new ticket. The author was directed to the airline's website, which was slow and difficult to use due to poor connectivity.
• The author was unable to call the airline's customer support, as the automated system directed them back to the website.
• After waiting for over 20 minutes, a connecting agent finally helped the author by providing a new boarding pass, but the rebooked flight had a 12-hour delay and a 3-hour layover.

2. How did this experience illustrate the need for centaur solutions in customer support?

• The author's experience highlighted the gaps and failures in customer service support systems, where automated systems fail and there is a lack of redundancy or seamless transition to human support.
• The author argues that AI and automation can be leveraged to enhance both the customer experience and the support agent's capabilities, creating a more effective and less frustrating customer support system.