AI can cut queues—but removing humans could destroy trust

              

 

British Gas says customers increasingly prefer dealing with AI, as owner Centrica prepares to cut 1,300 customer-service jobs. But chatbots may be brilliant at routine enquiries and hopeless when people face debt, bereavement or billing disasters. The future isn’t AI versus humans—it’s AI for speed, humans for care and customers retaining the choice.

AI versus Human Customer Service

British Gas customers prefer to talk to AI chatbots than real humans according to the boss of Centrica with owns the gas supplier. Really? Apparently so, and that sweeping generalisation is the basis for the plan to make 1,300 call centre people redundant.

Centrica, plans to cut 800 jobs as the company carries out a “targeted deployment of AI tools”, on top of the 500 cuts it confirmed last month. The jobs will go from customer service teams in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Leicester, Stockport and Leeds over the next 2 years and some of the cuts will come as people leave and aren’t replaced, with the rest from redundancies. To be fair to Centrica this will reduce the humans by 14% so there will still be humans around waiting for your call. But the announcement raises a few questions for any customer facing company thinking of moving to AI customer service.

Which customers prefer AI chatbots, in what situations, and when they preferred the chatbot what was the alternative?

With companies like British Gas leading the charge, is this the beginning of the end for people led customer service?

Are chatbots the future of customer‑facing businesses?

British Gas and other AI leaning companies will probably find that it works well for some tasks and for some customers, but it won’t work for everyone or for every type of query. Many firms have been using AI/Chatbots for years and customers have been passed over to humans if there were complexities in the process. As we’ve seen already with some of the big consultancy firms that embraced AI with delight and dispensed, at great speed, with troublesome humans, there has been a bit of rowing back on the strategy.

Most large service businesses are already or will move to a hybrid model:

• AI for simple, transactional, repetitive tasks
• Humans for complex, emotional, high‑stakes situations or for dealing with customers in vulnerable circumstances.

This is happening in banking, utilities, retail, travel and government services. It has the advantage of allowing the simple stuff to be dealt with quickly while leaving the humans to deal with the more complex stuff. The whole system gets through its workload quicker and deals better with greater volumes and peaks and troughs in those volumes.

Customers are often happy with the results

Customers do prefer AI when the task is:

• quick (“what’s my balance?”)
• simple (“change my direct debit date”)
• predictable (“track my order”)
• available 24/7
• faster than waiting in a queue

In these cases, AI is faster, cheaper, and less frustrating than call centres. Sometimes the AI is so good that people don’t realise they haven’t been talking to a human and the development of AI tools is so fast that the AI is improving almost overnight.

Customers don’t prefer AI and definitely want a human to talk to when the issue is:

• complex
• emotional
• urgent
• financially risky
• involves vulnerability
• involves complaint escalation
• involves negotiation or discretion

This includes things like billing errors, debt, bereavement, fraud, service failures, account glitches: anything where the stakes are high and there’s an element of fear involved.

British Gas’s own customer complaints data shows that human contact is still essential for customers in vulnerable circumstances and complex cases.

Companies are pushing AI hard for three reasons:

1. The cost of doing business is huge and AI is cheaper than humans.

2. Volume management

Companies often have problems managing the peaks and troughs they get in contacts from customers. AI deals with the simple calls so humans can focus on the hard stuff.

3. Competitive pressure

If one company cuts costs with AI, others follow and if that allows them to cut costs, they may be able to deliver more cheaply for customers so they have the competitive edge. The companies that don’t embrace AI are then pricing themselves out of the market.

The real risk

The danger isn’t chatbots. It’s removing humans. When companies hide phone numbers or other contact options and force customers through bots it can make escalation impossible. That’s when trust collapses and reputation can suffer. This is happening in energy, broadband, parcel delivery and some banks and customers don’t like not being able to find a way through to a human, especially when something has gone wrong.

When things go wrong

AI is brilliant at routine tasks. It’s not good (yet) at:

• nuance
• empathy
• discretion
• exceptions
• accountability

When a customer is in distress, angry, confused or vulnerable, AI can escalate the problem rather than solve it. This is where a good reputation that’s taken years to build can go out the window in seconds.

Customers prefer your AI

If the AI is good, the task is simple, and the human safety net is strong customers are happy. If British Gas uses AI to replace humans rather than support them, customers will not be happy, complaints will rise and we may see some backtracking down the line.

If they use AI to shorten queues, speed up simple tasks and free up humans for complex cases, customers will accept it and many will love it.

The future is a blended service

The winning model will be AI for speed; humans for care; and choice for customers.

Companies that remove choice will lose trust. Companies that use AI to enhance human service will win. If you’re thinking about updating your system heed the warning and listen to your customers before you decide on your strategy.

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