The Impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on Customer Relationship Management: A Qualitative Study

Ever since the commercialization of the Internet in the '90s, technology has been evolving faster than ever with the advent of cloud computing, social media, ubiquitous mobile devices, the Internet of Things (IoT), blockchain, and more. A staggering number of three billion internet users, five billion mobile users, and six billion devices are now connected through this massive global network of networks, facilitating customer information exchange and interaction never before seen in history. Driven by recent technological advances in computing power, big data, high-speed internet connection, and easier access to models built with advanced algorithms, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the next wave of innovation, which has already come into widespread awareness in the consumer world with the emergence of virtual assistants and chatbots (e.g., Amazon's Alexa, Apple's Siri, Google's Assistant), image recognition (e.g., Facebook Photos, Google ImageNet), personalized recommendations (e.g., Netflix, Amazon) and autonomous driving (e.g., Tesla, Google Waymo). This qualitative research study intends to learn about the impact of AI on customer relationship management (CRM), specifically in the area of customer service of problem resolution. Most prior research focuses on the AI technologies leveraged in CRM systems, such as machine learning, natural language processing, voice recognition, chatbots, data analytics, and cloud infrastructure. Few extant studies have used a qualitative research methodology to gather data from industry experts to truly understand the impact of AI technologies on customer relationship management, especially in the area of customer service and problem resolution. This study aims to fill this research gap. This research contributes to the literature on AI in the context of CRM and is of value to both academics and practitioners as it provides a detailed analysis and documentation of the impact of AI on the customer service domain.