How Companies Can Redefine Customer Support in a Fast-Paced World
by John Westermeyer
While customer service excellence is often loosely thrown around in ‘corporate talk’, there are several practical elements that come into play when it comes to supporting customers. At Eva-Last, this topic is so core to our DNA that it forms one of our four Value Pillars, namely Sustainability, Innovation, Accountability, and Customer Excellence. We’ve developed an eco-system around our customers, through experience and design, to alleviate their daily commercial challenges and it is driven by the simple philosophy that customers belong to everyone in the business.
The world is moving at an unprecedented pace, driven primarily by technological acceleration (yes, AI), global economic shifts, and rapid environmental changes. People everywhere are experiencing major changes in how they work, communicate, and live. Today the oil price or other raw materials will skyrocket and tomorrow a shipping lane will be disrupted by conflicts in a region – there will always be a challenge. Gone are the days where you can have a single Key Account Manager look after an account where everything is channelled through this person towards customers. The speed of decision making, problem solving, and chasing sales opportunities requires a company to have a customer centric approach across all functional areas of the organisation.
The potential of AI is mindboggling, and it comes at a time when processing huge volumes of information and connecting all the dots for fast decision making is not humanly possible. Many CRMs initially tried to develop their own in-house AI models and promote certain features, but they have since realised that partnering with the AI frontrunners gives them an edge and creates a complimentary partnership – the best of both worlds! The rapid pace of foundation model development forced a strategy pivot toward open ecosystems and strategic partnerships (e.g., integrations with OpenAI, Anthropic’s Claude, and Google Cloud’s Gemini).
Instead of trolling through encyclopaedia-volumes worth of information on customer correspondence or diving down a rabbit hole to unearth past files on product information, the power of AI is giving us instant access, placing this all directly at our fingertips. Instead of replacing human interactions, deep CRM integrations act as real-time “co-pilots” for account managers. They synthesize years of correspondence into three bullet-point summaries and gauge customer sentiment during active conversations.
Like a growing child, systems still need to be nurtured and developed over time. Software, applications, and AI platforms contain a treasure trove of features as they all battle for supremacy, and most users only skim the surface of these possibilities. Companies often make the mistake of investing in rolling out these systems without dedicated skilled and experienced resources that can work with the commercial team to take full advantage of these features.
Technology is becoming the gamechanger but still lacks the ability to empathize with a customer, build trusting relationships that will last for years, or simply be an ear for a customer to vent when faced with challenges. AI will become more human-like, but it will never have a soul. If your organisation can harness this cutting-edge technology and drive a culture of customer centricity then your customers will feel truly supported and valued.
