Customer support in the age of AI‍

‍We sat down with Peter Roberts, CaseMark’s VP of Customer Success, to get his take on how to balance the use of technology with human empathy and expertise to serve customers in the age of AI. As a company providing AI-powered legal summaries, adopting AI for a variety of tasks within CaseMark was a no-brainer. But how do you ensure that customers get the answers they need and still feel heard when machines are part of the mix?

In a recent survey of customer service professionals conducted by HubSpot, 78% said that AI/automation helps them spend more time on the more important parts of their roles. AI is no longer a ”nice to have feature” for customer support- it is criteria for how analysts like Forrester assess service tools. This post looks at how is AI is part of CaseMark’s approach to customer support.

Focusing on human + AI customer support

The goal of using AI in customer service today is to complement, not replace, human interaction.

How does CaseMark balance the use of AI and human agents to provide exceptional customer support?
‍It’s important to strike a balance between AI automation and human intervention, especially for sensitive enquiries that need empathy and understanding. While AI assistants can efficiently handle a range of tasks and resolve many customer queries, they shouldn’t be used to try and address emotionally charged or unusual situations. In these cases, a human touch makes all the difference to providing a compassionate or strategic response, so the customer feels heard and supported.

We never pretend that an AI answer is a human and we present a number of ways to find answers quickly.

What are the key benefits of our human + AI approach for customers?
‍One of the main benefits of our human + AI approach is that we’ve embedded customer support directly within our product. While customers are working on summaries, they can always ask a question within the product.  While we still offer support channels of yesteryear, such as email or phone, context sensitive answers are available right where customers need help. 

What measures do we take to prevent customers from feeling frustrated or impersonalized when interacting with our AI-powered systems? 
‍Building on the concept of in-product help, our human support agents actively monitor the AI conversations that our customers are having and can jump in to provide additional help or context if our AI doesn’t have the right answer.  We then provide those more correct answers for our AI to use in subsequent similar conversations.

We are all getting used to chatbots. Learning about AI in context has some interesting quirks. CaseMark uses Intercom’s AI chat feature for support questions. You can also use AI chat with our legal summaries to query your deposition or case file.  Some customers have used our Intercom support chat to solve legal issues. Amazingly, Intercom’s AI is able to explain our platform and directs customers to the right place within our product to get case-specific questions answered.

Highlighting customer-centric values

What’s your philosophy on customer service? How does it guide our approach to using AI and human agents?
‍Customer service is both an opportunity to help our customers with a specific problem that they are encountering, AND to build customer trust and loyalty.  Sure, we can provide a routine answer to their issue, but more importantly, it should be timely (immediate), frictionless and hopefully a delightful experience for our customers. AI helps us provide immediate help and solutions to customers right inside of the product.  Our human agents are able to expand on this experience by providing more detailed help, or fill in where our AI may not yet have the answer.

AI “super empowers” an individual's capabilities beyond what is humanly possible. It's a first line of defense, with immediate response, no matter what time someone needs support. It allows live support when needed- and a human is there. It’s also an opportunity to learn. We sometimes are able to solve issues immediately or if there’s a bug, overnight. That ability to be real time, to be present matters a lot. 

 Our customer support experiences often become product ideas.  Customers may want a more complex or bespoke solution from our product than we currently offer.  Since we have many new workflows that we are currently building on in the lab, we often handle custom customer requests for a more customized solution, still with a rapid turn-around. That’s the delight part.

How do you think about customer satisfaction?
Customer feedback is critical to us because it lets us know what we’re doing right, and more importantly,  on where we can still grow.  Negative feedback can teach us how we can improve our product or how we can better provide help.  Any customer feedback is a gift to us, good or bad, and is important to take seriously, with compassion and a thoughtful response.   After all, the customer could have just kept quiet and we would have learned nothing about their experience.

What unique challenges do paralegals and lawyers face, and how does our customer support team address these needs?
One of our clients said “litigators are in a live arena- you need technology with the least chance of error.” Paralegals and lawyers often have quick turnarounds, so when they need a deposition summarized, they need it now. AI supplements our team’s ability to provide immediate answers on late nights outside of support hours.

Legal teams also expect a high level of privacy and security. This is something we’ve invested heavily in, and look at from various angles- from how we secure our systems to what information we request when  interacting with customers. You can see how we comply with established privacy and security standards in our Trust Center, in real time.

In what situations do you believe human interaction is essential for providing the best possible customer service?
‍We need a human touch when the customer experiences a novel bug or error in our product.  In this case, I think it’s important for the customer to know they are communicating with a person and that person is empathetic, knowledgeable and able to deliver the results our customer is expecting.  

Future outlook and innovation

‍What are the future trends in customer support that you are keeping an eye on?
‍I’m impressed with the experience we can provide our customers with a small team of people, supported by AI solutions throughout our technology stack.  The AI solutions we use super empower our humans to be much more productive, especially with back-office tasks that could previously take a lot of effort to complete. 

Exceptional customer support is more than just solving problems; it's about building strong relationships and delivering innovative solutions. Our customers are helping to shape our product. Direct interaction helps us create even more innovative and efficient solutions that empower our customers. AI supplements our team to provide faster responses. By combining the best of both worlds, we're committed to providing exceptional service that exceeds your expectations.