AI and Agencies: Trends That Will Influence Customer Service Strategy in 2025

Learn how to utilize trends in AI and contracting to enhance customer service.

Because of their size, small to midsize businesses (SMBs) have a huge potential advantage over larger competitors: their customer service.

While smaller companies may struggle to compete on price, scale, and reach, they can often focus on a different type of value by providing a more personal experience. And while some aspects of customer service are timeless, new trends and technologies are emerging that threaten to disrupt the profession.

In this article, we look at three significant customer service trends for SMBs in 2025. Any business leader, customer service provider, or customer support professional that wants to improve their current customer service strategy should factor them into their 2025 plans. By understanding how companies are using AI and external providers to improve customer service, SMBs will be able to adapt their strategies, knowing exactly when and where they will have the biggest impact.

Trend #1: Humans still outperform AI for most customer service tasks

Artificial intelligence is leaving no corner of the economy untouched, and businesses have jumped on the chance to improve customer service with AI. Capterra’s 2024 Customer Service Technology Survey* revealed that more than half of U.S. businesses (53%) use AI-enhanced customer service software already. And most of those firms that use it say that AI has increased productivity (confirmed by 61%), customer satisfaction levels (58%), and call volume (53%).

But it can’t outcompete humans just yet. The same survey also found that humans beat AI agents across a range of skills.

Among total respondents worldwide, a majority believe that humans perform better compared to AI at personalized interactions (65%), facilitating sales (58%), issue resolution (58%), evaluating performance (44%), and routine tasks (43%). But AI does win out at conversing in multiple languages (56%), analyzing data (53%), and avoiding biases (43%).

The below graphic summarizes which type of customer support agent is best at each task. The percentages in brackets refer to the proportion of respondents that think humans or AI performs best in this category. For each task, respondents could choose whether AI or humans performed better, or if they had similar performance:

The implications for SMBs are clear: AI has a place, but knowing where it complements humans is the key. Being selective about where AI and humans excel will ensure that your brand is delivering exceptional customer experiences and being as productive as possible.

Trend #2: The use of AI-enabled customer service tools is leading to higher customer satisfaction

Data shows that, broadly speaking, companies that use AI in their customer service provision are more likely to have increasingly satisfied customers than those that don’t use it.

Capterra's 2024 Customer Service Technology Survey found that more than two in three (68%) companies globally that use AI-enhanced customer service software report that customer satisfaction scores have improved during the last two years, compared to only 52% of those not using these types of tools.

This, of course, represents a broad trend. It does not follow that using AI automatically results in happier customers. Nor does it mean that AI is a prerequisite for customer satisfaction. But any SMB should be asking what ‘secret sauce’ AI has that can help them level up their satisfaction scores.

Where should SMBs focus their AI investment for customer service tech?

Gartner research into customer service has shown that including GenAI functionality into customer service technology doesn’t always result in good business outcomes. The company surveyed 180 customer service and support leaders to understand their perspectives on the technology their industry uses.^[1]

The research identified two areas where AI is currently delivering high value, and two where it is less productive among customer service and support leaders using each tool.

High value

• Virtual customer assistants (chatbots): 73% of firms surveyed by Gartner that use AI in their chatbots said the tool was of high or very high value to their organization, versus 50% of firms using traditional chatbots. While older tools use defined flows and scripted language, “GenAI allows more flexibility in identifying customer intent, taking relevant action and crafting personalized responses in natural language.”

• Case management: AI-powered case management promises greater automation of the manual tasks that are common to traditional systems. For example, AI can summarize and categorize issues after a customer service call, freeing up people for other work.

Marginal value

• Knowledge management: In the same report, Gartner predicts a major shift from assisted to self-serve customer service by 2026. To stay ahead of the curve, brands must have knowledge management processes in place. While business leaders may understand the potential for AI to generate and reformat content, they “are less informed about the role that GenAI plays in knowledge search and retrieval.”

• Virtual agent assistants: These tools can help customer support agents in their workflows, but Gartner believes that the focus may be in the wrong areas. Instead of using virtual assistants to retrieve information quickly, leaders should look at other pain points that support reps have and see how assistants can help. This may help with adoption, which is currently low.

There are three implications of this research for SMBs. First, explore how AI-powered functionality can enhance your current chatbots and case management processes. Second, identify opportunities to make more of AI when it comes to knowledge management and virtual assistants. Finally, don’t switch off to developments in the sector. AI is advancing more rapidly than most businesses can keep up with. In 12 months, its capabilities could have advanced significantly.

Trend #3: Hiring an outside agency is an increasingly popular approach to managing customer service 

The demand for customer service is on the rise. In Capterra’s 2024 Customer Service Technology Survey, almost half of global respondents involved in customer service budgeting and strategic initiatives (47%) said they will be increasing staff numbers over the coming year and a half, while only 9% foresee a decrease. 

On top of this, many firms globally are looking for external help to maintain good service levels and high customer satisfaction scores. This is especially true for those that currently manage their customer calls in house: 60% of these companies say they are either considering hiring an outside agency or already have formal plans to do so.

Using an external customer service provider has several potential advantages:

• Specialism: Customer service providers have the trained employees and technology to handle customer queries effectively and at scale. This allows SMBs to concentrate on their core business while letting the provider do what they do best — customer service.

• Cost efficiency: Specialist providers have developed lean operations in order to be competitive. They are familiar with the tools and processes that deliver good service and have perfected these at scale for large clients. SMBs can benefit from this experience without having to learn these lessons in house.

• Flexibility: As your customer service needs change, external suppliers can often react more quickly to meet them. They can increase or reduce headcount and adopt new channels ‘to order’. This avoids you going through costly HR processes and adopting unfamiliar tech. 

How to choose a customer service provider

1. Lead the conversation with data protection

Working with an external customer service partner means sharing your customer’s data. Depending on where you operate, this may be subject to regulation, with strict consequences in the event of a breach. Good providers will be familiar with the implications of this, and will be able to demonstrate the necessary compliance and security credentials.

2. Seek testimonials from companies like you

Not all customer service is alike. It varies by industry, by company size, and by geography. Many providers will claim to be able to meet your needs, but you should check reviews and ask for references from existing clients with profiles similar to yours. Good providers will be able to set up a call.

3. Verify that your tech will work together

Providers will probably use different systems to the ones you use, and you must ensure that they are compatible to make data transfer as seamless as possible. Some software will require integration using the vendor’s built-in tooling, but some may need custom code to function in the way you need. Before signing, ensure you understand the impact of this on your costs and productivity.

Next steps

Customer service is evolving rapidly. Just as technology is causing customer expectations to shift, it also provides brands with new opportunities to exceed them.

AI certainly has the power to transform customer service, and this is likely to happen in several waves as it becomes more sophisticated and widespread. The trend towards using customer service agencies may be a temporary reaction to increased demand or a long-term drive towards a fully outsourced model as standard. The benefits of this are clear, but SMBs should enter into any arrangement with the flexibility to withdraw if circumstances change.