Service centers have a wide spectrum of goals. At one end are those that emphasize the lowest possible cost per call. They rely on IVR or newer chatbots while making it virtually impossible to talk to a real person. At the other end are those that emphasize customer service. They hire knowledgeable and enthusiastic product evangelists, who then try to persuade internal users to use recently deployed IT services or external customers to purchase additional products.

Given user-provided data, chatbots using natural-language processing can handle many tasks highly efficiently, from resetting passwords to assigning airline seats. But when things go off script — when a user asks a question that isn’t part of the expected interaction or simply has trouble defining the problem — their helpfulness plummets. Over-relying on technology could lead to customer dissatisfaction with your service center.

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