A long while back, early in my customer success career, I predicted that The Future of Customer Success is Not Human. That was written way before AI had become what it is today, so arguably truer than ever. Yet in support of the title of this post, I didn’t say humans would be done away with entirely and I think that still holds true.

In case you are not familiar with the customer success profession, it is a business methodology focused on proactively ensuring customers achieve their desired outcomes while using a company’s products or services. It also is predominantly an approach taken by Software as a Service (SaaS) firms although many non-SaaS firms would do well to take a leaf from their book (which I covered in an eBook here).

The reason I bring this all up now is based on some new directions I am taking at work. I am going to be leading innovation activities in the customer success part of the organisation I work for, Microsoft (disclosure). The activities are all in service of Microsoft’s AI Workforce products like Copilot for M365.

If you accept as I do that customer success will still require that human touch to distinguish one company’s offering compared to another, then you should also accept that the way customer success is delivered by humans needs to change.

That needs to come from Services Innovation because after all, customer success is a human based service. And granted it will be radically enhanced by adopting AI to deliver better services and therefore to innovate. But it will still be about creating genuine connections that make your customers feel like they’ve hit the partnership jackpot. At least until Agents take over everything on both sides but I believe we are still a long way off that.

Product versus service led growth

There is another business practice to throw into the mix, a business strategy where the product itself is the primary driver of customer acquisition, activation, and retention. It’s called product led growth (PLG).

In principle, if you get this right, there is no need for humans carrying out customer success activities.

But here too, especially with complex and/or new products, or make that categories (like AI), I think humans will still be needed. And ultimately, it is the human based services that you typically get in customer success that will continue to play a role, supplementing any PLG efforts.

Innovating Services (and innovation for that matter)

In the age of AI, service innovation management involves strategically integrating artificial intelligence to enhance service delivery, personalize customer experiences, and optimize operational efficiency. AI can automate tasks, analyze data for insights, and create new service models, ultimately leading to more effective and innovative service offerings.

I also think innovation will be innovated in the age of AI, innovation management that is. In my new role I’ve already used AI to come up with a super simple idea capturing tool that incorporates Agents. I’m now working on the prioritisation and workflow for selected ideas and am using AI for all of this. When I can and if permitted, I’ll share more details of this. I’m also super excited to see how participants will use AI to come up with new ideas, the perfect remit for it.