What a day in customer service looks like — as AI changes everything

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For Kaylee Harris, who works in customer service for a credit card company, a day at work now looks very different. 

Her hours used to be filled with calls, note-taking and lengthy card disclosures. Now, thanks to artificial intelligence, she can focus more on each customer, Harris told CNBC.

For Shannon, AI has also changed things — but not in a good way. She works in customer service for a telecommunications company in Cardiff, Wales, and did not want to share her surname for fear of being identified by her employer. She told CNBC that AI-generated notes at her current workplace are often riddled with errors, "so I just write my own."

At her previous employer, a property services company, senior management told staff to "ChatGPT it" if they didn't know the answer. AI agents booked appointments, but when they couldn't offer a customer the requested date, they passed the case to a human. 

Staff were "constantly fighting fires," Shannon said. "All the complicated cases came to us, causing a lot of burnout."

Good for both employees and customers?

In theory, automation in customer service should mean human agents spend less time on admin and more time helping customers with problems that require human judgment, empathy and experience.

Nikola Mrkšić, CEO and co-founder of London-headquartered PolyAI, which develops voice AI systems for customer service, said contact-center agents can face "maximum abuse for minimum wage." 

They often deal with frustrated customers while working under strict performance metrics, sometimes without the authority or information to resolve problems, he told CNBC. He sees AI agents as a way to help shoulder that load.

Maximum abuse for minimum wage

Nikola Mrkšić

PolyAI

"It's a really, really difficult job," he said. "I think with AI, we have a shot at bridging the gap to make it better for both [customers and employees]."

The mental load of harder cases

The human touch

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