When startups are just starting out, their main goal is to attract customers and create a unique experience to stand out in the competition. Young companies build flexible service systems, respond to requests and do everything possible to make customers feel heard. As businesses expand and achieve greater success, they often seem to drift away from the personal connection that forms the essence of quality customer service. This drift often explains why big companies lose customers despite their massive scale and success. What causes this evolution?
Amazon: The Path from Startup to Giant
The example of Amazon shows this transformation. Founder Jeff Bezos repeatedly emphasized the importance of feedback, personally reading customer complaints and implementing changes. Today, Amazon is a multi-billion dollar giant, and the company’s customer service, to put it mildly, is far from perfect.
Try contacting Amazon technical support – it can turn into a real quest. Automatic response systems that often give irrelevant answers, the inability to talk to a person, redirects in endless chatbots. There is a feeling that customer service is no longer a company priority. This may be due to the belief that a huge customer base (millions of users) provides stable income, even if some customers leave. For example, the loss of 100-200 thousand customers with a base of 10 million is barely noticeable for financial indicators. But is this correct from the point of view of long-term strategy?
The Stagnation Phase: Why Do Companies Stop?
When a startup turns into a corporation, priorities shift. Instead of investing in service quality, the focus goes to scaling and cost optimization. This often leads to outsourcing technical support to countries with cheap labor, where the quality of service is noticeably reduced.
Another problem is managing a huge number of customers. Company leaders, once satiated with success, can go into the “autopilot” phase, believing that the business is already working like a well-oiled machine. But this method weakens customer trust and can cause serious harm to a company’s reputation.
Solution: Artificial Intelligence as a New Standard
One way to solve the problem of large-scale and high-quality service is to use artificial intelligence (AI). Despite the fears associated with the introduction of AI, it can be a salvation. Modern algorithms are capable of not only automating routine processes, but also providing a more personalized and accurate approach to each client.
For example, AI can analyze customer requests, predict their needs and provide answers that are relevant and timely. This will significantly reduce the burden on human resources and avoid problems associated with outsourcing.
Why You Shouldn’t Be Afraid of AI
Fears that AI will replace people are actually groundless. Yes, some professions, such as a technical support operator, may become a thing of the past. But this will open up new opportunities for people. Freed from routine work, humanity will be able to direct its efforts to education and development.
History has repeatedly shown that technological revolutions stimulate the development of society. The transition from horses to cars, from manual labor to automated production – each time it led to the emergence of new professions and skills. Artificial intelligence is not a threat, but an opportunity to raise the level of education and develop human potential.
