In 2025, the difference between good and great customer support success won’t be response times, it’ll be human connection. Just ask KOHO’s Monika Aufdermauer, whose team transformed from password-reset specialists into financial coaches by strategically deploying AI. “We’re putting humans where they actually add value,” she explains, “like helping someone improve their credit score or create their first budget.”
We asked Monika and Forethought’s Director of Customer Success, Lindsay Fifield, to uncover exactly how they’re building AI-powered support teams that don’t just solve problems but create above-and-beyond customer experiences. Whether you’re AI-skeptical or automation-ready, you’ll learn exactly how to level up your support team while creating meaningful moments that turn customers into fans.
Tip 1: Automate repetitive tasks
When Monika’s team at KOHO first considered AI automation, they weren’t just looking to cut costs—they were trying to solve a morale problem. “You don’t build a career in customer support to reset passwords all day,” she explains. “You do it because you want to help people succeed.”
How to start automating
Here’s how KOHO and Forethought successfully automated their routine customer support tasks:
- Implement AI-powered ticket categorization to route tickets: Instead of jumping straight to customer-facing chatbots, KOHO uses AI to organize incoming tickets. Their system automatically reads messages, tags them with the right categories, and routes them to the right people.
- Set up automated workflows for repetitive questions: Start by figuring out what’s keeping your team busy. When both companies dug into their ticket data, they found the usual culprits: endless password resets, “where’s my order” tickets, basic how-to questions, and subscription hiccups.
- Use natural language AI to handle basic FAQs: Once internal automation is running smoothly, let AI chat with customers. KOHO’s system now handles 73% of initial contacts, using natural language to gather info, suggest resources, and know when to bring in human agents.
“We talk a lot about deploying our humans where humans are gonna add value,” Monika explains. “Password resets aren’t that place—we want our teams focused on helping people.”
Tip 2: Detect and solve problems before they happen
When the Forethought support team realized they needed a better way to deal with frustrated customers, they tried something different. Instead of waiting for frustrated emails about weird account behavior, they built tools to spot issues early and fix them fast. No more putting out fires, just happy customers who never knew there was a problem in the first place.
How to become proactive
Both companies discovered these strategies work best for getting ahead of support issues:
- Look for patterns in your data: KOHO’s team doesn’t wait for problems to pile up. Instead, they let AI dig through their support history to spot recurring headaches before they become major issues.
- Create early warning systems: Both teams built smart alert systems that catch trouble before it hits their inbox. Their AI watches for everything from weird account patterns to upcoming subscription renewals, letting agents reach out before customers even notice an issue.
- Put AI on watch duty: Here’s where KOHO’s proactive support really shines: they’ve got AI watching customer accounts 24/7, looking for anything unusual. The system analyzes behavior patterns and automatically flags potential issues before they escalate.
“These changes can be implemented relatively quickly and lightweight,” Lindsay notes. “Everyone’s trying to be more proactive where they can—and the impact is worth it.”
Tip 3: Build a knowledge base that actually helps CX success
The foundation of great AI support is a solid knowledge base. “If you have a great knowledge base, AI enhances it. If you only have a few FAQ pages, you’re limiting what’s possible,” Lindsay explains. KOHO turned their documentation into the backbone of their AI strategy, avoiding common issues like hallucinations by keeping everything current and comprehensive.
How to build a better knowledge base
Here’s how both companies turned their documentation into a powerful support tool:
- Help AI surface the right answers: Your support team is already sitting on a goldmine of content, no professional writers needed. Both companies simply started capturing their agents’ everyday solutions, turning real conversations into help articles written in plain language.
- Keep the product knowledge fresh and current: Outdated documentation frustrates customers, agents and AI systems. KOHO solved this by making fresh content part of their product release process, with AI helping flag articles that need updates.
- Organize information intuitively so customers don’t have to dig for answers: Both teams learned to structure their knowledge base around how people actually search, creating multiple versions of articles using different common phrases (like “reset password” or “can’t log in”). This helps their AI understand and answer questions better.
“If you have a great knowledge base, AI enhances it,” Lindsay explains. “It maximizes the use of it. If you only have a few knowledge articles, you’re limiting what’s possible.”
Tip 4: Ditch the chaos for smarter team workflows
Support agents spend way too much time jumping between tools that don’t talk to each other, copying and pasting info just to piece together what’s happening with a customer. Both companies fixed this headache by getting their tech stack to work as one smooth system.
How to streamline your workflows
Here’s how both companies turned their chaotic tech stacks into smooth-running support machines:
- Consolidate your view of the customer: The average agent probably jumps between three different tools just to piece together a customer’s story. Both teams solved this by creating a single dashboard that pulls in everything from past tickets to account status.
- Prioritize high-value conversations: Smart support means knowing where to focus your energy. Both companies use AI to analyze and sort incoming requests based on what needs immediate attention. Their systems automatically flag VIP accounts, billing issues and potential escalations.
- Catch escalations before they happen: Nobody likes dealing with angry customers, so KOHO built a system that helps prevent frustration before it boils over. Their AI watches for warning signs like multiple contacts or specific language patterns and alerts the team early.
These workflow improvements delivered real results. “This really is just improvements for efficiency, working smarter, not harder, centralizing tools to get a good three sixty view of everything that’s coming into CX,” Lindsay explains.
Tip 5: Prioritize high value interactions
Gone are the days when success meant closing as many tickets as possible. Smart companies are finally asking a better question: are we actually helping customers succeed, or just clearing the queue? At KOHO, this sparked a total rethink of what “good support” looks like: instead of racing through quick fixes, they’re having the kind of conversations that transform customers’ financial lives.
How to elevate your support interactions
Both companies found these strategies essential for moving beyond transactional support:
- Route simple, routine issues to AI: Move beyond basic routing by using AI as a smart matchmaker. Have it analyze requests and connect customers with the right specialist, whether that’s a financial advisor for money questions or a product expert for technical issues.
- Use AI-driven sentiment analysis: Stop waiting for customer surveys. Use AI to analyze the sentiment in support conversations, helping you understand how customers really feel about specific features and catch satisfaction trends in real-time.
- Coach agents for empathetic responses: Let humans do what they do best—understanding complex problems and showing real empathy. Train your team in deeper skills like financial counseling while AI handles the routine work, enabling the kind of conversations that actually change customers’ lives.
By rethinking what good support means and giving agents the tools to deliver it, both companies proved that success isn’t about closing tickets faster—it’s about having conversations that truly help customers succeed.
Tip 6: Regularly monitor the metrics that matter
The proof of AI’s impact lives in the numbers. KOHO tracks everything meticulously through their dashboards, and the results are impressive: response times dropped from a full day to just minutes, while support costs fell by two-thirds. But here’s the best part: service quality actually improved while costs went down, showing that efficiency and excellence can go hand in hand.
How to measure what matters
Here’s how both teams keep their finger on the pulse of customer satisfaction:
- Set up AI dashboards that tell a full story: Skip the monthly reports. Both companies set up live dashboards that track everything from response times to customer sentiment. They then use this data to spot trends early and fix issues before they become problems.
- Set up automated alerts for dips in performance: Look beyond individual tickets to spot new trends. KOHO’s team analyzes support conversations in real-time and shares insights through their “Voice of Customer” newsletter, helping product teams fix issues at the source.
- Conduct regular performance reviews: Start with good metrics, then make them better. Both teams regularly review their performance to find new opportunities. This constant cycle of testing and optimizing helps them push past “good enough” to deliver exceptional support.
“By looking at your metrics and finding areas for improvement with your team, you can really move that bar,” Lindsay adds. “That’s something KOHO has done an amazing job at over the last few years, not saying ‘okay, 50% deflection, that’s good.’ They keep pushing the envelope.”
Tip 7: Deliver tailored responses at scale
Cookie-cutter AI responses are out. Today’s customers expect support that feels personal, even when it’s automated. “We want to be your friend in finance,” Monika explains. “We use much more common language and tend to have emojis in a lot of our responses to be a little bit more on the friendly side.”
How to personalize at scale
Here’s how both companies make their automated support feel more human:
- Match your brand voice: Skip the corporate jargon. KOHO trained their AI to chat like a helpful friend who knows finance inside out. They use clear language and a friendly tone that matches their brand personality.
- Pull context from CRM data: Pull in relevant details from your CRM about past conversations and product usage. This helps create responses that show you really understand each customer’s journey, not just their current question.
- Keep an ongoing conversation with customers: Don’t just close tickets and move on. Use AI to stay connected with customers, checking in at the right moments and referencing past conversations naturally. This turns one-off support interactions into ongoing relationships.
“The better AI gets, the more our bot adapts to our language and stays that friend in finance,” Monika notes.
Tip 8: Invest in your team’s growth
Forget the doom and gloom about AI replacing support teams. Both companies have seen it create better opportunities instead. At KOHO, automating basic tasks freed up resources for advanced training and higher-level support roles. Meanwhile, Forethought’s best agents are becoming AI specialists, actually shaping how automation works rather than being replaced by it.
How to develop your team
Here’s how both companies are preparing their teams for the future:
- Make AI training part of everyday work: Skip the one-off training sessions. Both teams run regular workshops where agents practice with new AI features and learn how the technology thinks.
- Create clear guidelines for AI tools: Build clear guidelines that help agents understand when to use AI and when to take the lead themselves. KOHO’s approach cut onboarding time from six weeks to just two and a half, making it easier to scale during busy seasons.
- Encourage continuous learning and peer mentorship: Let your best agents shape how AI works. Both companies tap their stars to help improve automation and coach others, creating a culture where everyone learns from each other.
“I have a lot of teams that have created AI programs within their CX organization,” Lindsay shares. “And a lot of times, it’s composed of their highest performing agents. Of course, the person that you want training your AI program should be the ones on the front lines, hitting all the marks.”
The future of CX is human-powered AI
The future of customer support isn’t about replacing humans with AI, it’s about letting each do what they do best. When AI handles the routine stuff, your team can focus on what really matters: having meaningful conversations that change customers’ lives.
Both KOHO and Forethought have shown that getting this balance right pays off big time. Their agents are happier doing more rewarding work. Their customers get faster, better support. And their bottom lines are healthier than ever.
Ready to transform your support team? Schedule a demo with Forethought today to see how AI can help your agents do their best work.
