AI Agents vs Human Teams: Who Handles Customer Support Better at Scale?
24 Apr 2025
AI Agent vs Human

In the age of hyper-personalization, 24/7 engagement, and instant gratification, businesses are under pressure to provide consistent, responsive, and scalable support—without ballooning operational costs. As more companies move toward digital transformation, one question keeps surfacing in boardrooms and IT strategy meetings:

Can AI agents outperform human customer support teams—especially at scale?

With the rise of intelligent, enterprise-ready AI customer service platforms like REDtone’s, the answer is not only yes—it’s already happening across multiple industries, from telco to finance and logistics. As a trusted AI provider in Malaysia, REDtone is leading this shift.

The Human Limitation in Customer Support

Human agents have long been the backbone of customer service. Empathetic, conversational, and capable of navigating emotional nuance, they’re essential for complex or high-stakes interactions. However, in high-volume environments, human-only support models begin to break under pressure.

Let’s break it down:

  • A trained human agent typically handles 60 to 80 queries daily, depending on the complexity and workload. However, global studies report that contact center agents across industries average closer to 20–40 tickets per day, particularly in live chat environments where multitasking is involved [1].

  • Fatigue, turnover, and multitasking fatigue can reduce both accuracy and consistency. In fact, agent burnout is one of the top drivers of call center attrition, which globally averages over 30% per year [2].

  • High-frequency inquiries like order tracking, billing questions, and password resets eat up valuable time and offer little satisfaction to agents.

  • Operating round-the-clock requires rotational shifts, overtime, and larger teams, all of which drive up costs. In Malaysia, the average fully loaded monthly cost of a Tier 1 customer service agent in Kuala Lumpur is estimated at RM2,600–RM4,200 [3].

  • In multilingual markets like Malaysia, staffing native speakers in Bahasa Malaysia, English, Mandarin, and Tamil adds even more complexity.

What’s more, customer expectations have changed. They want help immediately, across any channel—be it WhatsApp, Telegram, Facebook Messenger, or web chat. Delayed responses result in lost trust and lost customers.

In short: human support teams are essential, but they’re not built for infinite scale.

The Rise of AI Agents: Built for Volume, Speed & Scale

Modern AI agents are not static bots that follow rigid scripts. They are adaptive, multilingual, and powered by enterprise-level natural language models. REDtone’s AI customer service platform uses advanced AI to understand user intent, draw from connected data sources, and provide real-time responses—at scale.

Unlike traditional chatbots, today’s AI bots are powered by deep learning and advanced intent recognition. These AI chatbots can handle open-ended questions, maintain conversational context, and adjust tone based on customer sentiment. That means more natural, more helpful, and more human-like experiences—delivered instantly, every time.

Key advantages include:

  • Handling 1,000+ queries daily per AI agent with no performance degradation [4]

  • 24/7 uptime—including weekends, holidays, and off-peak hours

  • Multilingual coverage in 90+ languages for diverse customer bases

  • Fast, natural-sounding replies that adjust based on tone, sentiment, and customer profile

  • Easy deployment via a no-code AI bot builder, making automation accessible to non-technical teams

  • Seamless integration with enterprise tools like CRM, ERP, WhatsApp, and Slack

As a leading AI provider in Malaysia, REDtone ensures that these AI bots are optimized for local use cases—from language switching to campaign spikes.

Side-by-Side: The Scalability Showdown

Let’s compare what scaling customer support looks like with human-only teams versus AI-powered operations:

MetricHuman AgentREDtone AI Agent / AI Bot
Avg. Tickets per Day30–40 [1]1,000+ [4]
Languages per Agent1–290+
Hours of Availability~8 hours24/7/365
Peak Volume HandlingRequires hiringScales instantly
Cost to ScaleIncreases linearlyScales non-linearly
Channel SupportLimitedMultichannel (WhatsApp, Web)

During peak seasons—like festive periods in Malaysia—this difference becomes critical. While human teams struggle with load, AI bots continue to deliver consistently.

Technology That Works with You, Not Just for You

One of the biggest benefits of REDtone’s enterprise AI solutions is that they’re designed for collaborative support—where humans and AI work hand-in-hand.

Think of it like a modern support relay:

  1. AI agent handles the opening: greets the customer, understands intent, pulls up account or order data.

  2. AI resolves what it can: anything from simple how-tos to price checks, appointment scheduling, or warranty policies.

  3. AI intelligently escalates: if the request is emotional, urgent, or requires discretion, the conversation is seamlessly handed to a human agent—with full context intact.

This hybrid model leads to faster responses, fewer errors, and happier agents—not to mention better customer outcomes.

And because REDtone’s AI chatbot system supports a no-code environment, businesses can build, train, and optimize agents without heavy IT involvement.

Built for Malaysia: Multilingual, Always-On, Cost-Effective

Malaysia’s customer support landscape is unique. With a diverse population, language expectations are high—many users switch between Bahasa Malaysia, English, Mandarin, and Tamil in a single interaction.

And with a strong digital economy, businesses are expected to be responsive beyond standard working hours, especially on mobile-first platforms like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger.

Traditional support models struggle to keep up with:

  • After-hours queries

  • Public holiday support

  • Regional dialects and language switching

  • Sudden demand surges during local campaigns

As an experienced AI provider in Malaysia, REDtone’s AI bot technology is tailored for these challenges—delivering local nuance with global capability.

Use Case Snapshot: Scaling Support with REDtone AI

Let’s say your business receives 3,000 customer inquiries a day across web, WhatsApp, and Facebook.

Option A: Human-Only Support

  • Requires hiring 75–100 full-time agents, based on a 30–40 ticket/day capacity [1]

  • Rotational shifts, HR overhead, and training demands

  • Costs scale linearly with volume—potentially RM200,000+ in monthly manpower alone

Option B: AI-Human Hybrid with REDtone

  • AI chatbot auto-resolves 70–80% of Tier 1 issues [2]

  • Human team focuses on complex, emotional, or sales-related cases

  • Support costs drop by up to 70% through automation [4]

  • CSAT improves due to faster response and resolution time

  • System available 24/7 in multiple languages

It’s not just cost savings—it’s a smarter, more sustainable way to grow.

AI Agents Empower, Not Replace

There’s a common misconception that AI bots will “replace” human support teams. In reality, they enable your team to do more with less pressure.

By offloading repetitive tasks and handling large volumes of predictable queries, AI agents and AI chatbots:

  • Reduce burnout

  • Improve agent satisfaction

  • Decrease turnover

  • Allow teams to focus on critical, revenue-generating conversations

In this model, support becomes smarter, not smaller.

The Future is Hybrid, Scalable, and Human-Aware

As customer expectations continue to rise and digital channels multiply, businesses need to rethink how they deliver service at scale. The future isn’t about replacing people with machines. It’s about empowering people with machines—letting AI agents handle the repetitive, high-volume work while your human agents focus on the critical moments that matter most.

And with REDtone’s no-code, enterprise-ready AI platform—trusted as an AI provider in Malaysia—that future is already within reach.

Ready to Scale Support with AI?

REDtone is a leading AI provider in Malaysia, offering enterprise-ready solutions for customer service automation, personalization, and multilingual engagement. Our AI Agent platform enables businesses to streamline support, reduce costs, and deliver outstanding customer experiences—at scale.

🔹 REDtone’s AI Agent – Your trusted AI agent platform and AI bot provider in Malaysia, purpose-built for enterprise-scale support and automation.
🔹 AI Marketing Cloud – Orchestrate intelligent marketing, customer journeys, and automation from one place.
📲 Message us on WhatsApp for a free personalized demo: https://wa.me/60147600155

Explore More AI Marketing Insights
Curious how AI can do more than just automate support? Deepen your understanding with these resources:

📘 The Ultimate Guide to AI Marketing in Malaysia
A comprehensive breakdown of how AI marketing tools are transforming business strategies across Malaysia.

🤖 AI Bots & Customer Experience: Personalization at Scale
Learn how AI chatbots and AI bots enhance CX with real-time, personalized support.

📊 AI Marketing & Customer Segmentation for Malaysian Businesses
Discover smarter segmentation strategies powered by AI for higher ROI and better targeting.

References

[1] Zowie. (2023). Customer Service Metrics: What’s Normal & What’s Not. Retrieved from https://getzowie.com/blog/customer-service-metrics

[2] Gartner. (2023). How to Reduce Call Center Attrition. Retrieved from https://www.gartner.com/en/customer-service-support/trends/reduce-call-center-attrition

[3] Payscale. (2024). Customer Service Representative (CSR) Salary in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Retrieved from https://www.payscale.com/research/MY/Job=Customer_Service_Representative_(CSR)/Salary/1a958b7f/Kuala-Lumpur

[4] IBM. (2024). Data Suggests Growth in Enterprise Adoption of AI is Due to Widespread Deployment by Early Adopters. Retrieved from https://newsroom.ibm.com/2024-01-10-Data-Suggests-Growth-in-Enterprise-Adoption-of-AI-is-Due-to-Widespread-Deployment-by-Early-Adopters