Generative AI tools like ChatGPT are super-powerful, but how is it actually useful to you in Customer Success on a daily basis?
When it comes to AI like ChatGPT, everything starts with understanding Prompt Engineering.
I like to remind people that AI will not replace you. But if you don’t know how to leverage powerful AI tools – like ChatGPT – someone who does… definitely will.
Let’s dig in.
What is ChatGPT?
ChatGPT (Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer) is a chatbot developed by OpenAI and launched in November 2022.
It is built on top of OpenAI’s GPT-3 family of large language models and is trained on diverse sources, including human speech patterns, business language, and slang.
Previous to ChatGPT, the underlying language models were only available via API to programmers or via 3rd party apps that integrated with OpenAI.
Now, anyone with a browser can access GPT directly via a very familiar chat interface.
Prompts vs. Keyword Searches
ChatGPT is not a search engine that finds and retrieves existing content that matches your query.
Rather, ChatGPT is literally writing the result for you in response to your prompt in real time.
But to do that, you must ask it to do something for you – give it a task or assignment – and you do that by providing it with a prompt.
Enter Prompt Engineering
In fact, because knowing how to write prompts is a skill you need to have to remain relevant in your career and effective in your role, we created a self-study course called Prompt Engineering for Customer Success.
But whether you take that course or figure this stuff out on your own, there is so much untapped potential in ChatGPT for Customer Success, this is in no way an exhaustive list of how it adds value in CS, but below is a start.
The Value of ChatGPT for Customer Success Managers (CSM)
As a CSM, once you understand Prompt Engineering, ChatGPT will make your job easier. You’ll be able to do more, faster. You’ll be able to actually spend time preparing and brainstorming ahead of calls.
In our Impact Academy CSM training, we advocate for doing that meeting prep work, but we know that the bandwidth isn’t always there.
And even if you do have time, it’s sometimes hard to be creative in the way effective brainstorming takes. ChatGPT helps there.
And overcoming blank-screen syndrome – for CSMs and Enablement – where you need to write an email or come up with great subject lines and because of bandwidth and distraction issues you just can’t get started. ChatGPT – used correctly – really shines here.
The Value of ChatGPT for CS Enablement and Ops
For Enablement, creating content that scales is challenging, and ChatGPT helps in multiple ways; eliminating blank-screen syndrome, understanding a customer segment better, knowing their potential objections, and so much more.
And for Ops, taking prompts that work well and replacing specifics with variables that can be replaced by information from the customer record that are then passed to OpenAI via API, can automate a lot of that prep work the CSM would do on their own.
From Zapier or Make to custom programming, the possibilities are endless.
But it all starts with Prompt Engineering.
About Lincoln Murphy