AI CX is about using artificial intelligence (AI) to improve the customer experience (CX) just like with chatbots. But it’s not just about chatbots. AI CX involves so many technologies such as natural language comprehension, sophisticated deep learning models, automatic speech recognition, context awareness, and task-focused dialogue. The systems are used on any channel, whether web, social media, email, text, voice, or video.
“I like to think of AI CX that‘ A ’stands for‘ Access ’and‘ I ’stands for‘ Intimacy, ’” said Puneet Mehta, CEO of Netomi. “AI CX enables in this combination of access and intimacy between businesses and their customers in a very objective way. ”
It’s about achieving true one-on-one engagement dimensions.
“AI CX is replacing the cheap, generic customer experiences of the past,” said Jaime Meritt, chief product officer at Verint.
So, let’s take a deeper look at AI CX with a focus on its capabilities, use cases, and downsides.
The Importance of CX
The CX becomes a major difference and competitive advantage. Examples of this include Amazon, Facebook, Apple, and Uber. They disrupted major industries and built high -growth businesses.
But it’s hard to build a strong CX platform, partly because of the reliance on too many legacy systems scattering data in loops. The result is that it is difficult to get a holistic view of the customer journey. Nor do companies effectively analyze data, such as for purpose, emotion, and emotion. For most, strategy is more of a guessing game.
Meanwhile, there continues to be a labor shortage. This means it is difficult to hire and retain support agents to provide better service.
“Every day, revenue teams are responsible for maintaining communications with large volumes of current and prospective customers,” said Erica Hansen, VP of customer success at Conversica. “Each of these contacts expects a very personalized experience that is frankly impossible to deliver when every human representative tries to juggle 50 or even 100 customers.
“In particular, customer account managers often prioritize a select few high -value accounts while paying less attention to smaller, less -invested customers.”
Also read: MetaCX puts Customer Experience Management first
CX Powered by AI
Whenever it comes to solving a difficult problem, AI seems to be the reflex answer. However, artificial intelligence requires large amounts of quality data as well as related algorithms, so it may not always be the best option. But as for the CX, artificial intelligence makes a lot of sense.
“AI CX is the perfect pairing of artificial intelligence and human intelligence meeting to satisfy the human customer,” said Muddu Sudhakar, CEO of Aisera.
However, there are still challenges. Prior to an implementation, there needs to be a well-thought-out plan based on clear key performance indicators (KPIs). There also needs to be a unified environment where data is aggregated and easily integrated with customer touchpoints. It shouldn’t matter what channel a customer uses; the main focus is on getting the right insights.
Moreover, don’t try for a big-bang strategy. That is, you should focus on a specific use case. And yes, a good place to start is in the customer service department.
“A lot of customer service disputes come from time spent creating identity, like‘ who am I talking to ?, ’and goal setting, like‘ what can I help you with? ’” Says Shawna Wolverton, Product EVP at Zendesk. “This is where AI can seamlessly facilitate the dance between the company and their customer.
“Instead of people feeling frustrated at repeating themselves multiple times with so many different agents, they have a better — and faster — experience.”
The customer service department has a large number of tickets that AI models can process. Tickets also include recurring questions and issues.
“AI CX is more advanced than strict rules -based chatbots that rely on buttons and keywords,” Mehta said. “It needs to determine the purpose of a person’s message using natural language comprehension.
“In one example, Comcast found that there were 1,700 ways a person could ask a direct question: ‘I want to pay my bill.’ Without training data, AI may not understand that ‘I want to fix my account’ has the same meaning. “
Regardless of the sophistication of the AI, there still needs to be a continuous off-ramp to a human agent. But the heavy lift of technology should allow for more time to be spent on value-adding activities. AI can also help the human agent with recommendations on how to best handle a situation.
Another way to improve CX is to be more proactive.
“AI can present problems that need to be fixed before customers know an issue and can predict and avoid future issues,” said Michael Ramsey, VP of product management and customer workflows at ServiceNow . “It boosts customer satisfaction.”
There are definitely downsides to AI CX. Understanding human interactions is extremely complex, and misunderstanding can cause dissatisfaction with customers. Other downsides may include biased data, which can lead to discrimination and unfair treatment, and too many privacy laws and regulations that need to be considered before making any enforcement.
The Ongoing AI/CX Relationship
Although there are noticeable risks to AI CX, the benefits of the technology are too important to ignore. They can make a significant difference in boosting growth. The key is to continually improve systems and focus on responsible AI.
“AI enables organizations to deliver better customer experiences because it allows them to understand customer needs and contexts and do so faster than ever before,” said Tara DeZao, director of product marketing for in AdTech and MarTech in Pega. “Organizations now have an almost endless amount of customer data on their hands, but it doesn’t mean anything if they don’t use that data to inform their customer interactions at the exact time they are. AI makes that process more accurate, efficient, knowledgeable, and above all, more customer -centered. ”
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