Question 1

How do you evaluate AI customer service vendors?

Accepted Answer

Evaluate AI customer service vendors by testing them on your own tickets and scoring them on measured resolution rate, connections to your systems, ability to take safe actions, guardrails and approvals, quality of handoff to humans, analytics, security and compliance, time to value, and total cost at your expected volume. Insist on a pilot with real data.

Question 2

What should be in an AI customer service RFP?

Accepted Answer

Use cases, volumes, systems to connect, security requirements, success metrics and pricing model questions.

Question 3

How long should an AI vendor pilot last?

Accepted Answer

Typically 2 to 6 weeks, long enough to see real traffic and fix initial knowledge gaps.

Question 4

What is the biggest mistake when choosing AI for support?

Accepted Answer

Judging on demos with sample data instead of measuring resolution on your own tickets.

Criterion	Weight	What good looks like
Measured resolution	25%	High resolution on your tickets, with low reopen
Data and integrations	15%	Live access to CRM, billing, product, logs
Actions and guardrails	15%	Approvals, limits, audit logs
Handoff	10%	Full context passed to agents
Analytics	10%	Clear reporting, conversational analytics
Security	10%	Permissions, certifications, data terms
Time to value	5%	Weeks, not quarters
Total cost	10%	Predictable at your volume

How do you evaluate AI customer service vendors?

Scorecard

Pilot design

Frequently Asked Questions