Mission possible: How AI agents and Gen AI could transform customer service

Contrary to the beliefs of some disgruntled customers, poor service levels are not necessarily destined to remain a source of frustration. In fact, the advent of Gen AI and agentic AI could usher in a new era in customer service. The recent Capgemini Research Institute report Unleashing the value of customer service: The transformative impact of Gen AI and agentic AI sets out a roadmap for revolutionizing customer service by embracing AI’s powerful capabilities.

What’s everyone saying? 

• Organizations have long seen customer service (CS) as a cost center and a mere support function, failing to see the value it can bring when customer service agents are well equipped and truly feel like customer advocates. 
• In addition, customers are increasingly dissatisfied with customer service. Just last month, The Guardian asked why customer service “has become so, so bad,” adding to countless headlines going back years. 
• To add insult to injury, the highly fragmented technologies that CS usually relies on further degrade the overall customer experience.

What do we have to say?

• Customer service is, in fact, broken. 65% of executives surveyed report their organizations face low operational efficiencies in their CS function, and only 45% of consumers are satisfied with customer service. While insurance boasts relatively higher satisfaction at 53%, most industries struggle—particularly telecom companies and government services, with ratings of 35% and 25% respectively.
• This is a missed opportunity, as customers highly value customer service: 58% say that customer service is very/extremely important in shaping their overall perception of a brand, and 60% are willing to pay for premium CS in regularly used services like banking, utilities, or telecom. Even more telling, 55% say they would leave a brand that offers poor customer service—a figure that rises even higher among younger demographics, proving that excellent customer service is not a luxury but a strategic imperative and differentiator.

• Customer service agents, too, are unhappy with the current state of CS: only 16% are satisfied with their roles. Executives echo this sentiment, citing poor agent satisfaction and high agent attrition rate as one of the main challenges faced by their CS function. 
• Fortunately, a remarkable shift is taking place in the way leaders view customer service. While 61% of executives currently position their CS function primarily as support (with this figure reaching 63% in auto, 65% in retail, and even 70% in utilities), only 22% think this will still be the case three years from now.

• The rise of Gen AI and AI agents is giving organizations an opportunity to empower their people to deliver a new level of customer service, bringing both top- and bottom-line benefits. As agentic AI systems scale, they will become increasingly specialized and autonomous, enabling human agents to focus on delivering high-value, personalized customer experiences. Antony PASSEMARD , Director of Product Management, Applied AI, Customer Experience at Google , explains what differentiates agentic AI: “Agentic systems are a major disruptor in customer service. Unlike traditional systems where interactions were turn-based—meaning an agent would speak, and then the customer would respond—AI enables real-time conversations that feel fluid and natural.”
• Consequently, traditional customer service will evolve into a customer experience center, operated by hybrid teams combining human and AI agents. The benefits: increased efficiency, enrichment of agent roles, shorter issue handling times—and, ultimately, enhanced customer satisfaction and new commercial opportunities that create a competitive edge in the market.
• Yet the transition to AI-powered customer service is an organizational shift that demands a complete redesign of customer service from the ground up, for which 49% of organizations consider themselves underprepared. The main challenges include outdated/legacy IT systems (79%), poor interdepartmental coordination (74%), fragmented IT landscapes (73%), and cultural misalignment (58%). Another major challenge is the availability of data, which is crucial to improving customer service. As Bastian Brandt , Area Vice President and Head of Cloud Sales, Germany & Austria, Salesforce puts it: "Establishing a robust data foundation and strategy is essential to effectively leveraging generative AI in customer service. Companies that ensure easy access to their data empower their agents to make informed decisions and provide accurate guidance to customers, significantly enhancing customer experience.”

Who’s doing it right?

Faced with growing customer service demands, Eneco eMobility , one of the top three smart charge point providers in the Netherlands and Belgium, partnered with Capgemini to design a solution to serve its customers better, faster, and cheaper. Together, we introduced Dynamics 365 Contact Center, a Copilot-first cloud contact center, powered by Gen AI. The result? Higher customer and employee satisfaction and a wrap-up time reduced by 50%. Find out more here or watch the video below!

What’s the bottom line?

To implement this organizational shift, we recommend a phased approach.

• Redesign customer service by reimagining it as a collaborative effort between hybrid human/AI teams, defining which functions and tasks will be handled by AI agents or by humans with the help of AI, transforming processes to focus on end-to-end customer experiences and process as a service, and defining how digital and human teams will operate.
• Deploy the new vision for customer service by implementing a cloud-based CCaaS (contact center as a service) with CRM, data platform, and AI integration, gradually deploying AI agents, building a solid data and AI foundation, assessing human skillsets and creating a development framework, and implementing change management.
• Ensure continuous improvement by constantly orchestrating, monitoring, and evaluating the performance and compliance of AI agents and the overall system, defining new KPIs and monitoring methods, evaluating AI’s impact on overall effectiveness of customer service, and making the necessary adjustments based on feedback and performance.

Looking for more? 

• For actionable, operational advice, dive into our expert PoV to discover seven game-changing, detailed levers your organization can implement to transform customer service.
• In regularly used services like banking, excellent CS is of the essence. When Dutch bank ABN AMRO wanted its digital interactions to feel like a personal one-on-one conversation with a bank representative, we helped it transition to Microsoft Copilot and launch a new Gen AI factory approach. Find out more here.
• “What once required extensive human coordination now happens within minutes, with final approval from a human supervisor. This dramatically improves efficiency and customer satisfaction.” We sat down with Dr. Walter Sun , Senior Vice President and Global Head of Artificial Intelligence at SAP , to discuss how AI agents can drive business value in customer service... and beyond. Read our conversation here.
• To revolutionize customer experience across industries, trusted agentic AI must be able to integrate seamlessly with a client’s existing technology infrastructure. That’s why we’ve joined forces with Google. Working hand in hand with Google Cloud’s AI technology, we'll develop industry-specific agentic AI solutions that manage customer requests across all channels.
• Many companies struggle to unlock the full potential value from agentic AI. Together with Salesforce we’re helping organizations identify the right use cases, integrate agentic AI solutions and establish governance frameworks. Discover our partnership and how Agentforce empowers companies to make decisions faster and boost productivity.

And you, what are you saying? 

Is your organization leveraging Gen AI to reimagine its customer service? Have you started exploring how AI-powered agents can boost human agent satisfaction? Share your experiences, challenges, and questions in the comments section below!