The Future of Customer Service - How to do More with Less
How support teams are cutting costs without sacrificing quality — and the tools making it possible.
CS Unleashed Webinar Series
June 27, 2024
This session of the CS Unleashed Webinar Series tackles the future of customer service and how to do more with less. Host Cory Brown (CEO of Simplesat) sits down with Kimberly McKellar (VP of Customer Success at Gladly) for a deep, practical conversation on scaling support without scaling costs, personalizing service at scale, building a true omnichannel experience, and deploying AI and automation in a way that protects customer satisfaction.
Key takeaways
- Put rich customer data (lifetime value, purchase history, loyalty status, past CSAT) in front of agents so they start every interaction a step ahead and can personalize quickly.
- Personalization is not just warm and fuzzy: done well it lowers customer acquisition cost, lifts revenue, and improves marketing ROI by driving loyalty and retention.
- Scale efficiently by leaning into digital channels like chat and SMS, where one agent can help many customers at once, and reserve phone and email for high-touch needs.
- The order you list contact options on your website strongly steers behavior, so deprioritize or hide channels like phone to shift your channel mix.
- Avoid the "kitchen sink" approach to data: keep a clean UI, start small, and remove fields agents don't actually use.
- Decide your AI-versus-CSAT tradeoff deliberately: lenient policies handled by automation can score as high as a human, while strict policy enforcement may cost some satisfaction in exchange for efficiency.
What they covered
The core theme was scaling support without scaling costs. Kimberly framed personalization as the lever that turns good service into loyalty, powered by surfacing the right customer data and letting agents take action inside one platform rather than juggling tabs. Self-service, when complete and accurate, scales the cohort of customers who simply want a fast answer.
On omnichannel, she stressed meeting customers where they are while being realistic about staffing. Adding channels like SMS requires planning so nothing gets stuck, and she shared a customer example that shifted from email-heavy to roughly 60% messaging over a year. Tech stack consolidation (Crate and Barrel went from six systems to two) reduces friction, though CSAT vendors like Simplesat are intentionally kept separate and integrated in.
On AI, the message was measured: blend AI and humans, automate transactional "rinse and repeat" work, empower agents for higher-value conversations, and move toward proactive communication. Integrated Simplesat CSAT data can auto-create tasks, route to retention teams, or "boost" unhappy customers up the queue.
The full recording and slides are available on request.
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Speakers
Cory is fueled by a passion for customer service and a dedication to helping his own clients achieve excellence in their service offerings. With 15 years of experience collaborating with MSPs, he has honed his skills in improving their marketing and customer success strategies.
Kimberly McKellar, VP of Customer Success at Gladly, has spent the last 10 years in the Customer Success space. Today, she works with some of the most loved brands in Ecommerce, travel, hospitality and wellness. Large or small, companies are looking to provide an exceptional customer experience all the while balancing cost, an ever expanding tech stack, efficiency, personalization, customer loyalty and, importantly today, automation and AI. Kimberly is fortunate to work in such a dynamic and evolving space, helping companies define and refine their customer experience to engender customer loyalty.
