Customer experience knows no boundaries: Why AI must bring voice and text together

Voice is currently taking on a new dynamic in customer service. Modern artificial intelligence (AI) makes it possible not only to answer calls, but also to understand customer enquiries, provide information and initiate processes directly. What sounded like a pipe dream just a few years ago is now becoming a real option for service organisations.

The potential is enormous: customers can reach companies round the clock, waiting times can be reduced, and staff are relieved of repetitive tasks.

But as important as voice is for the future of customer service, a truly good customer experience is not created by a single channel. After all, customers do not communicate exclusively by telephone. They write emails, use contact forms, chat or even switch between several channels whilst dealing with an enquiry.

Customer experience knows no channels.

For businesses, it is natural to consider individual channels in isolation. For customers, however, this distinction is irrelevant. Above all, they expect three things: a quick response, accurate information and a company that understands their concerns, regardless of whether the enquiry is made by telephone or email.

This is precisely why the introduction of AI in customer service must not be limited to the question of which channel to automate first. What matters far more is how customers can be supported quickly, competently and consistently throughout the entire customer journey – across all relevant channels.

A look at real-world practice shows that, alongside telephone calls, there is considerable potential in written communication in particular. In many service organisations, emails are still reviewed, sorted and distributed manually; in some cases, they are collected and only later assigned to the relevant staff members.

For customers, this means that although a query is raised today, the response may take several days to arrive. This is a major factor affecting the customer experience, particularly for municipal utilities, insurance companies and other organisations dealing with high volumes of enquiries.

Many of these enquiries are well-structured and recurring. Modern AI can classify emails and other written enquiries, identify relevant information, prepare responses or process cases in a fully automated manner.

Voice and text are therefore not competing worlds, but two sides of the same customer service coin.

The real challenge lies in bringing these options together. A customer might send an email in the morning, ring at lunchtime and follow up via chat the next day. An intelligent service system should not have to start from scratch each time, but should recognise the context of an enquiry and make this information available across all touchpoints.

This requires two things: end-to-end integration of systems, data and channels as a technical foundation, and intelligent orchestration that recognises, prioritises and routes enquiries to the right place, regardless of the channel through which they were received. In practical terms, this means:

Current real-world examples show that there is no need to reinvent an entire service organisation from scratch to achieve this. At the Rheinische Post, it was recognised early on that written communication, in particular, offers great potential for automation. Together with Digital Dialog, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Rheinische Post, processes were identified in which AI creates tangible added value. The Nürnberger Presse publishing house (VNP) is also making targeted use of artificial intelligence in its reader services to handle service processes more quickly, reliably and efficiently, utilising the German AI platform ThinkOwl for this purpose. The AI-powered solution ‘Kiara’ handles selected enquiries autonomously and resolves them completely.

Experience from such projects shows that you do not have to start with the most complex use case. The key is to begin where a high volume of enquiries coincides with recurring processes and where customers currently face unnecessarily long waiting times for a response. Voice can be an effective starting point here, provided that the next step is considered from the outset: how can the insights and capabilities gained be transferred to other channels?

The combination of voice and text in automation projects lays the foundation for a consistent standard of service. Customers receive consistent information regardless of the contact channel, staff draw on the same knowledge, and processes can be automated and managed across all channels.

At the same time, valuable data is generated from every interaction: what questions do customers ask? Where do problems arise? Which processes repeatedly lead to follow-up enquiries? As a result, AI in customer service becomes far more than just an automation tool for individual channels. It becomes the foundation for better understanding customers and continuously improving the service.

The future of customer service does not lie with voicebots alone, any more than it does with email bots, chatbots or individual AI agents. The real innovation lies in their interplay: voice technology opens up new possibilities for fast, personalised customer service that is available round the clock. At the same time, written communication offers enormous potential for automation and efficiency. An AI platform such as ThinkOwl can combine both through end-to-end integration and orchestration, thereby creating a consistent customer journey.

The customer decides which channel to use, not the company. That is why AI must bring voice and text together and deliver the same quality across all channels.