Consumers do want to be served by AI, but one that feels human

Do humans prefer machines?

A May 2024 study by Capterra, a software review discovery platform, reveals that 78% of global customer service professionals indicate that the main method users use to contact customer service representatives is customer is email, followed by phone calls (77%) and live chat with a representative (47%).

However, the panorama in Mexico does not match the global one, 73% of respondents in the country pointed out live phone calls as the main method of interaction with customer service. This way of interacting is followed by email (66%) and messages on social networks (48%).

“In Mexico, person-to-person attention is the most valued, much more than asynchronous communication or with a bot, which is why phone calls are the most used. Any company with customer service in the country must take this into account and have a qualified team to handle calls and incidents,” says Bruno Peláez, senior content analyst at Capterra Mexico.

When digging deeper into customer preferences or whether they lean more towards machines or humans in customer service, Zendesk’s analysis does not seem to have as much relevance for the majority, but rather what they want are resolutions. 72% of consumers in Mexico said they don’t care if they receive help from an AI or a person, as long as their question is answered.

“Customer service response times are key to customer satisfaction. Managing calls and live chats on time not only requires a team trained to listen, understand and evaluate customer needs but also the technology necessary to carry out these actions fluidly and optimally,” adds Peláez.

The Capterra study concluded that human and AI performance is better depending on the type of care required. Technology performs better than people in multilingual conversations. Also in data analysis and knowledge generation and avoiding biases.

Humans do better than AI at facilitating transactions or upselling, solving problems, and personalizing interactions.