We’ve all reached out to customer support. Anything from needing help while online shopping or when using a banking app portal, to trying to get more information about a product you just bought. Chances are you ended up talking to an AI chatbot — even when you expected to be in touch with a human.
How did that experience go for you? A smooth interaction that saved you time (avoiding having to phone support) is satisfying. However, if you didn’t get the answer you needed, it leaves a sour taste in your mouth. Did it change your impression of the brand you were interacting with?
That one moment has lasting consequences. Today, customer service plays a defining role in how individuals perceive a brand. A single bad experience with an AI agent could mean a lost customer for good. But when done right, AI is also an opportunity for brands to deliver a satisfying customer experience.
So, where’s the disconnect? It comes down to the foundation. Without high-quality content and a strong governance framework, AI agents fall short, putting both the customer experience and your brand reputation at risk. Getting it right ensures every interaction not only ends with a delighted customer, but is also safe and aligned with your brand guidelines.
The Risks That Arise When AI Agents Take Control
AI agents have the power to supercharge your customer service strategy, but if you don’t have a comprehensive compliance framework in place, they also scale chaos. Just like any AI model, chatbots can provide false information, mishandle customer requests, go off script, or fail to comply with regulations. All of which opens your brand up to risk.
Bad experiences damage your company’s reputation. What’s worse? Non-compliant communication leads to financial penalties or lawsuits when chatbots don’t abide by your industry’s regulations. Just take a look at this Air Canada example.
The Content Crisis Behind the Chatbot
It’s no surprise that companies are turning to AI agents to improve customer support. Demand for real-time answers continues to soar and consumers crave self-services capabilities. But if your AI agent regularly goes off script, you’re lacking a quality framework and guidelines for your agent to follow.
At the root of every chatbot is content. It’s critical you have a content governance framework in place to ensure that AI agents are compliant with your brand guidelines, and also industry standards and regulations.
Every place that customers are interacting with content — from website copy and social media posts to product documentation and knowledge bases — is part of the customer experience. Whether AI generated or not, ensuring that content is accurate, consistent and on-brand removes the risk of non-compliant content from reaching customers.
Why Step One is a Compliance Framework
Many organizations struggle with where to begin when rolling out AI in customer service. With content driving these customer interactions, you can’t move forward without having the right content.
AI chatbots can’t and won’t deliver the level of service customers expect without being trained on well-governed, high-quality content. But with customer support being a brand differentiator today, it’s not just about what chatbots say, but how they say it. Because of this output controls are a must — setting guardrails for tone, clarity, and compliance from the outset to ensure every interaction stays on-brand.
As AI becomes more embedded in customer interactions, it’s critical to track how it performs. While monitoring feedback and measuring customer satisfaction are important steps, you should also analyze the chatbot’s effect on your business’ bottom line. These insights will pinpoint where AI agents are effective and where they are falling short, so that you can adjust strategies to improve outcomes.
Ultimately, even the most advanced AI still requires human supervision. As the use of AI agents becomes more widespread, so does the risk of poor agent interactions. So, it’s important to remember that while AI helps scale your CX strategy, real people need to be shaping the strategy to maintain quality customer service.
How AI is Rewriting the Customer Playbook of the Future
You’ve probably experienced a frustrating interaction with a customer service AI chatbot before, and it might make you roll your eyes every time you realize you’re in touch with one. But the truth is that as organizations look to operate more efficiently, customer service is one of the top areas they are turning to AI for.
Every brand needs to have a strong content foundation and a comprehensive compliance framework for AI chatbots to power successful customer interactions. Without it, a world of self-service and AI agents helping customers solve their problems is out of sight.
