Customer service automation at SHL now resolves about 80% of candidate enquiries through a low-cost bot, with a human always one click away. Jag Tucker, SHL’s Global Customer Experience Director, explained how at aiblLIVE London 2026.
The bot, Sherlock, absorbed work equal to 35 staff without a single redundancy. Net Promoter Score rose about 10 points, and SHL puts the return on investment at £2 million.
All figures as stated on stage by Jag Tucker.
Because a small team faced millions of test takers. SHL’s tests are taken in more than 150 countries, in many languages and around the clock. Agents spent much of their time on the same simple requests, such as password resets and which browser to use, all handled by hand.
Sherlock answers questions about what candidates need before a test and runs routine checks, such as confirming browser settings and resetting passwords. It was trained on thousands of articles and built on low-cost tools, including a bot from an Indian start-up. About one query in five goes to a live agent.
AI is to help you and not to replace you. And we live by that today.
Jag Tucker, Global Customer Experience Director, SHL
A visible “I wish to speak to an agent” option is always on screen. SHL also tracks how long chats take, improving articles or offering a transfer where technical queries run long. If the bot cannot understand a query, or the language is not supported, it transfers the customer straight away.
No. The bot took on work equal to 35 staff, but SHL let nobody go. It stopped recruiting as the business grew.
Staff had feared replacement, but the bot removed the monotonous tasks they disliked. Retention improved, and quarterly surveys showed contact centre staff were markedly happier.
We found generally if the bot was simple and it solved the inquiry quickly, in the language, people were happy to use it.
Jag Tucker, Global Customer Experience Director, SHL
Jag Tucker is Global Customer Experience Director at SHL, the online assessment company, where he has worked for 20 years. He spoke on the Customer track at aiblLIVE London on 20 October 2026.
If your contact centre is buried in repeat queries, this is a low-cost route to borrow. The full PDF goes deeper than this page, in Tucker’s own words.
For customer service, contact centre and CX leaders, and operations directors. Six pages, about a seven-minute read.
