Harvard Business School Working Knowledge

May 27, 2025 · Mentioned in the reading · Harvard Business School

Harvard Business School Working Knowledge: AI suggestions helped service agents

Ben Rand’s Working Knowledge article describes a study by Shunyuan Zhang and Das Narayandas of AI suggestions shown to customer-service agents during online chats with customers of an unnamed meal delivery company. The researchers report that agents using suggestions responded faster and received higher customer-sentiment scores than agents without them; the reported improvements were larger for less-experienced agents. The article argues that AI can support human service rather than simply replace it, especially by helping newer agents handle conversations. It also describes limits: results varied with customer intent, improvements were less substantial for repeat complaints, and customers sometimes seemed confused when transferred from a chatbot to an agent who responded very quickly. The researchers suggest that managers consider who benefits from assistance, including newer service employees and companies seeking to retain customers who ask to cancel subscriptions. These findings come from one company, and the article does not establish that the measured sentiment changes led to higher revenue, better employee retention, or results in other settings. How would the reported effects change across other companies, customer intents, and ways of transferring conversations from chatbots to human agents?