AI Could Give Us Something We’ve Never Really Had Before: TIME!

After writing my previous article about IKEA and how they approached the capacity created by AI, I found myself thinking about what I believe is the bigger opportunity sitting behind all of this. 

Most of the conversations I have with customer operations leaders start in roughly the same place. The discussion is usually about efficiency, automation, cost and what the ROI is. How much demand can AI handle? What service improvements can be achieved? How will workforce requirements change over time? 

They’re all important questions and they’re certainly questions organisations should be asking. However, I wonder whether we’re spending enough time discussing what happens next… 

In my experience, most contact centres have never really had the luxury of capacity. The focus has been on (failing to) keep up with demand. Calls need answering, emails need responding to, complaints need resolving and we’re tracking service levels and AHTs. Whether we call it the Call Centre, Contact Centre or Customer Service – we design our operations to react to customer needs. 

That’s why I think AI is making a much bigger shift than simply making operations more efficient. 

If AI successfully takes care of a significant proportion of routine customer interactions, like Ikea has shown, organisations suddenly have a choice. They can use that capacity to continue doing the same things with fewer resources, or they can use some of that capacity to do things they have never realistically had the time to do before. 

A good example is the relationship many of us have with our insurance providers. If I’m being honest, I don’t really have one. 

Like most people, I buy insurance because I need it. I compare prices, review the headline features and make a decision. Then I pay my premium and largely forget about it until renewal comes around. And when I get the renewal email, I remember that I paid for the thing that I never used and the cycle starts again. The only time I’m likely to discover the true value of that insurer is when I need to make a claim or deal with a situation where I genuinely need support. 

Fortunately, most of us don’t need to do that very often. 

What that means is that many insurance companies, even those who have customers who may stay with them for years without ever really engaging with them – the relationship is almost entirely transactional. Customers buy based on price because price is often the only thing they have available to judge. 

For me, this doesn’t make business sense and I don’t believe that’s actually what organisations want, else why do we have discounts, tool kits and retention teams? It’s because they’ve never had the capacity to do anything different. 

If AI starts creating meaningful capacity, perhaps we have an opportunity to rethink that model? 

Instead of every available resource being focused on responding to inbound demand, could organisations, instead, become more proactive? Could they spend more time helping customers understand the services they’re paying for? Could they reach out at significant moments in a customer’s journey? Could they provide advice, education or support before a customer encounters a problem rather than afterwards? 

I’m not suggesting that every organisation suddenly turns its contact centre into a customer engagement team. Nor am I suggesting that the commercial benefits of efficiency aren’t important. They absolutely are. 

What I’m suggesting is that many organisations may be underestimating the value of stronger customer relationships because they’ve never had the operational capacity available to them to pursue them at scale. Will this be where some of the most interesting AI stories emerge over the next few years? I genuinely think so. 

The first wave of AI adoption has largely been about proving the technology works. The current wave is focused on demonstrating efficiency and return on investment. The next wave may be about how organisations choose to use the capacity that AI creates.  

I think this will unfold in a much more practical way than the headlines suggest. 

First, AI will take on more of the routine demand. The simple queries, repeated questions and tasks that fill the queue every day. 

That should help organisations answer the customer needs they are already missing today: abandoned calls, long waits, slow replies and journeys where people give up before they get help. 

Then the efficiency follows. Costs reduce because the same operation can handle more demand with less pressure. That matters. 

But the bigger question is what happens next. Do we simply bank the saving, or do we use some of that capacity to do the things customer teams have never really had time to do properly? 

That is where the strategy matters. This cannot just be a technology purchase and deployment. Organisations need a clear view of which customer needs they want to serve better, how roles will change and where human time creates the most value. 

So, AI may create the capacity.  

However, the biggest value will come from deciding what we actually do with it.