Imagine waking up every morning, knowing you have the tools to transform how millions of people work, resolve challenges, and find solutions faster than ever before.
That’s the reality for leaders like Michelle Lewis-Miller, VP, Head of Strategy and Transformation, SAP. She’s spearheading SAP’s journey into the future of customer support, using cutting-edge AI to revolutionize how their customers interact with support systems. This goes beyond technology — it’s about simplifying lives, eliminating friction, and giving people back their most precious resource: time.
As businesses like SAP Concur adapt to the AI revolution, they’re not only improving operational efficiency — they’re fundamentally reshaping their customer experience. Speaking at Coveo’s 2024 Relevance 360, Michelle detailed how SAP Concur tackled persistent pain points in their self-service support system, leveraged Coveo GenAI to streamline processes, and realized incredible returns on investment.
As of August 31st, SAP Concur reports that Coveo Relevance Generative Answering has contributed to a staggering 30% decline in case submissions, and the number of searches performed by customers before finding the answers they needed dropped by an astounding 91%.
This blog unpacks those key insights, revealing the true power of AI to transform support systems, drive cost savings, and deliver better outcomes for customers. It’s a story about technology, yes, but more importantly, it’s a story about human impact.
The Power of Innovation in Technical Support
For Michelle, the excitement of her role comes from the constant innovation and experimentation that SAP Concur embraces. As she noted, “No two days are the same,” highlighting the thrill of testing emerging technologies to find innovative applications — not just within their industry, but in the field of technical support as a whole.
This mindset is what allowed her team to pinpoint critical pain points in the customer journey, particularly the inefficiencies in their self-service support system. With a tech stack incorporating Salesforce Service Cloud and Salesforce knowledge, they needed something that would augment and extend those already industry-leading capabilities.
One of the major challenges, Michelle explained, was that customers were facing a complex and time-consuming process when trying to self-serve.
“We have millions and millions of knowledge assets, many of which are twenty years old, and customers often had to sift through multiple documents to find the answers they needed,” she said. This cumbersome process led to frustration, causing customers to give up and submit cases instead — resulting in longer wait times for everyone.
AI’s impact on technical support is clear — it simplifies the customer journey by making knowledge easily accessible, eliminates friction, and enhances the overall customer experience. By leveraging AI, companies can streamline complex processes and improve both customer satisfaction and operational efficiency.
In fact, research from McKinsey shows that businesses adopting AI for customer operations can reduce call, chat, and email inquiries by 15–20% in just a few months, with AI-driven initiatives achieving ROI within 2 to 4 months on average — and SAP has done even better!
Addressing Customer Pain Points with Coveo GenAI
Faced with these challenges, Michelle and her team knew that AI could offer a solution. After undergoing five separate governance reviews to ensure compliance with SAP’s strict security and data privacy standards, they chose to deploy Coveo GenAI.
“We went through the ringer on the approvals,” Michelle shared, but Coveo’s platform met all their requirements, providing the security and flexibility they needed to move forward.
By integrating Coveo’s Relevance Generative Answering, SAP Concur transformed how their customers search for and consume knowledge. Michelle highlighted, “We’ve dramatically improved customers’ ability to find what they’re looking for… often combining multiple pieces of information from different assets into one solution.” This shift has saved customers time and frustration by providing them with immediate, relevant answers.
Implementing AI in customer support reduces complexity and improves efficiency. With AI-powered tools like Coveo, companies can streamline information retrieval, providing customers with fast, accurate answers and significantly enhancing the user experience.
According to Gartner, by 2025, 80% of customer service organizations will have moved from reactive to proactive customer service strategies, with AI playing a central role.
The Measurable Impact of GenAI on Case Deflection
One of the most compelling metrics Michelle shared during the conversation was the dramatic impact that Coveo GenAI had on case deflection. In the first four weeks of implementation, SAP Concur observed a 5% decline in case submissions stemming from search sessions. While initially skeptical of these results, Michelle took extensive steps to validate the data, pulling in multiple analytics departments to confirm the numbers.
By August 31st, the impact had grown even more remarkable. SAP Concur reported a 30% decline in case submissions, and the number of searches performed by customers before finding the answers they needed dropped by an astounding 91%.
“That’s massive,” Michelle remarked, underscoring how this level of case deflection has fundamentally changed the way their support team operates.
AI-driven case deflection is a game-changer. By using generative AI, companies can significantly reduce the number of cases submitted to their support teams, freeing up resources to handle more complex, pressing issues. This leads to better operational efficiency and a higher level of customer satisfaction.
Optimizing Costs and Freeing Up Resources
The benefits of AI adoption at SAP Concur extend far beyond case deflection.
Among the most significant outcomes has been substantial cost savings. Michelle shared how, thanks to AI-driven case deflection, SAP Concur is projecting lower case volumes for the next year — a significant milestone considering the company is enjoying one of its highest revenue years to date.
“That frees up capacity for us to focus on more strategic initiatives and avoid hiring at the same pace,” she noted.
These savings are allowing SAP Concur to reinvest resources in growth-driving projects, transforming the way they allocate budgets and plan for the future. In fact, the company is now in the process of rolling out Coveo GenAI across all of SAP’s self-service platforms, which is expected to result in even more cost reductions as AI adoption continues to scale.
Beyond enhancing customer experience, AI can lead to significant cost savings by reducing operational overhead and freeing up resources for more strategic initiatives. A report from PwC projects that AI could contribute up to $15.7 trillion to the global economy by 2030, with most of the value coming from increased productivity and cost savings.
The Future of GenAI at SAP Concur: A Roadmap for Innovation
SAP Concur’s innovation doesn’t end with case deflection. Michelle shared several exciting future initiatives, including plans to expand the use of generative AI in customer chat and community spaces.
“We want to explore how we can help customers who prefer to chat actually self-serve before we connect them with an agent,” she explained. This expansion will further streamline the customer experience, providing additional opportunities for customers to resolve issues without needing direct support.
Another area of exploration is embedding GenAI directly into SAP Concur’s products, allowing customers to access AI-driven solutions without ever needing to visit the support portal.
“Are there ways we can bring this GenAI experience right into the product so the customer never needs to come to our portal at all?” Michelle asked, envisioning a future where AI is seamlessly integrated into the core product experience.
The future of AI in business is expansive, touching every aspect of customer interaction. By integrating GenAI into products and services, companies can create seamless, intuitive digital experiences that reduce customer effort and drive greater satisfaction. IDC predicts that by 2026, 75% of large enterprises will adopt some form of AI-driven intelligent digital experience platform to engage customers across multiple touchpoints.
Lessons for Leaders: Take Risks, Stay Agile
Michelle closed the conversation with advice for other leaders embarking on their own AI journey:
“Be bold. Take a risk. This is not the time to sit back and let the competition take all the risks.”
For SAP Concur, the willingness to experiment and take risks has been crucial to their success. By allowing customer behavior to guide their decisions and remaining agile in the face of new challenges, they’ve been able to iterate quickly and deliver substantial results.
Coveo’s flexibility as a partner also played a key role in SAP Concur’s success. Michelle praised Coveo for meeting them halfway, particularly when it came to data control and security. This close collaboration allowed SAP Concur to move forward with confidence, knowing that they were able to balance risk with reward.
Leaders must embrace a mindset of experimentation and risk-taking when deploying AI solutions. By continuously testing, learning, and iterating based on customer data, companies can stay agile and responsive, ultimately achieving greater business outcomes. Gartner reports that 91% of businesses are already investing in AI to enhance customer experience, with AI-powered automation being a key differentiator in today’s market.
A Model for AI-Driven Transformation
SAP Concur’s journey with Coveo GenAI is a testament to the power of AI in driving business transformation. By focusing on improving the customer experience, deflecting cases, and optimizing costs, SAP Concur has been able to unlock significant value for both the company and its customers.
As Michelle Lewis-Miller’s story shows, the future of customer support — and indeed, business as a whole — is AI-driven, and the companies that harness this power will be the ones that stay ahead of the competition.
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