Artificial Intelligence, BOTs and Customer Experience

Mobile phones have surpassed PC shipments in 2010. 10 times more smart phones are sold than PCs. We are surrounded by technology and there is a huge change in the way we are interacting with technology.  Starting with the Command Line Interface (CLI), the Graphical User Interface (GUI) has dominated computer applications for the past 30 years.

There is a technology transition already underway with there being more bots online that humans. Traditional GUIs have plateaued and Conversational User Interfaces (CUIs) are on the upswing. And it's only natural that this will permeate into the way humans and machines will interact. In the last couple of years there has been a generational change in the interactions with computers. We are no longer just typing on keyboards or swiping screens; it's also about voice, videos. Instagram, TicToc, etc. are all borne out of this social phenomena. It's about the psychological interface where computers can now understand our voice and the difference based upon how you are speaking and can deliver personalized communication to the user.

Why is this change happening?

• Technology has permeated every facet of our day. An AI assistant is available on every device we have.
• Speed of computing both on the endpoints and in the cloud has increased allowing realtime processing of complex data
• Friction and Access cost to internet has gone down
• People are always online.. Think of when is the last time you didn’t have a device online on you?

A Tata consultancy services recent survey unfolds that almost 31.7% of major companies are now using AI in customer service space. However, businesses have not taken advantage of this technology transition effectively yet and Customer Experience (CX) is still poor. As per a LogMeIn 2018 AI CX Report:

• On average, less than half (49%) of customer enquiries are resolved during the first interaction. A possible reason for this is that 68% of Business respondents agree that their agents struggle with the volume of customer enquiries.
• Just over six in ten (61%) Consumers feel that it takes too long for an enquiry to be resolved, and a further 23% believe that it takes about the right amount of time, but they would still like to be quicker - and 89% of that group will take retaliatory measures against brands who do not improve in this area.
• Over eight in ten (83%) surveyed Consumers have experienced at least one issue when interacting with a brand including having to repeat themselves, difficulty using self-service, and having trouble accessing an agent.

Organizations are having a hard time keeping up with the ever-changing demands of their customers. Customer experience is emerging as one of the key factors in whether a customer will go from a one-time transactional buyer to a long-term brand advocate. These factors largely depend on how quickly and easily issues are resolved and how valued a customer feels. To compound these challenges, agents are struggling to cope with the volume of enquiries that they are having to deal with and disconnected antiquated systems.  Emerging technologies, like AI-powered BOTs are helping organizations provide quicker resolutions and simplify the job of a customer service agent. Below, I am sharing some fascinating perspectives on AI in the Customer Experience (CX) space; what are the building blocks and what are some leaders in this space are doing.

“By 2020, 85% of customer interactions will be managed without a human” –  Gartner

The Role Of AI In Customer Experience

Reference: Pointillist

Today’s customers live in an omni channel world; they communicate through various devices and tools (phones, computers, whatsapp, facebook, twitter, chatbots, etc.) . But most companies still force these evolved customers onto engagement paths that are steeped in legacy and instantly feel outdated.

Artificial intelligence can be successfully employed to provide an intelligent, convenient and informed customer experience at any point along the customer journey. This will result in re-imagined customer experiences and end-to-end customer journeys that are integrated and more personal, so that they feel more natural to customers.

Customer experience is a competitive driver of growth when successful and the greatest source of risk when failing. Data insights are one of the primary tools for CX enhancement. CX datasets are messy, however, and the customer behaviors are chaotic.

At the same time, this complexity is precisely the reason why AI can unleash so much value across the customer experience. Salespeople, call center agents and employees in other customer-facing roles cannot be expected to understand a customer’s entire history and derive their own insights from it in real time.

Automated systems cannot be hand-programmed with rules to handle every conceivable customer history. Delivering a coherent experience across all enterprise touch points requires finding patterns across an overwhelming number of data points. This is prime stomping ground for AI.

3 Building Blocks for Successful Application of AI in Customer Experience

The successful application of AI in customer experience requires 3 fundamental capabilities:

1. Data Unification
2. Real-time Insights Delivery
3. Business Context

Customers expect a unified experience and are disappointed – and vocal – when companies fail to deliver. AI and customer journey analytics are key components in assembling businesses with One Voice, joined across silos and touchpoints.

Data Unification

Data unification is a must for any type of behavioral analytics. AI thrives on information—the more the better. The new generation of data unification tools make this daunting task cheap, fast, and relatively pain-free. Customer journey analytics platforms provide this service for a fraction of the cost of the dedicated data services providers of yore—even delivering a level of data integration free of charge.

Real-time Insights Delivery

For AI to impact the customer experience, insights need to be conveyed in the moment through the customer’s chosen touchpoint. Integrating with these touch points is the key to in-the-moment engagement. Platforms are now filling this gap with a host of APIs options and development kits to deliver comprehensive, real-time touchpoint integration with minimal investment.

Business Context

For AI to deliver value, it must be given some context. By context, I mean more than simply designating a certain interaction as an “inbound call” and another as “order fulfillment.” AI must know the significance of these events in shaping a customer behavior. That requires an awareness of both the journey that these touchpoints helped to shape and the KPIs which were subsequently impacted by that customer behavior—whether related to revenue, profitability, customer lifetime value, customer satisfaction or other factors driving high-level business performance.

Armed with that information, AI systems can do more than find the “next best action” or the optimal audience. With proper business context, an AI can find touchpoints and tactics which actually shape the customer behaviors behind the business’s primary measures of performance.

Three Ways AI Is Being Applied to Improve Customer Experience

Now that we understand what it takes to successfully apply artificial intelligence in customer experience, let’s delve into some of those applications to see how AI is unleashing disruption across various aspects of customer experience by unifying data, providing insights in real-time, and incorporating critical business context. Here’s how AI applications are giving customer service a makeover:

Chatbots and Virtual Assistants

Chatbots are AI-based conversation agents that are being used in many different customer-engagement scenarios. They are designed to simulate human interactions and provide immediate, personalized responses 24*7. This eliminates frustrating delays and errors in customer service, particularly for handling customer complaints.

Virtual assistants utilize AI to obey commands or answer questions. Online retailer Spring was one of the first to start using Facebook’s Messenger Bot store to offer a personal shopping assistant. It helps shoppers find what they are looking for by engaging them in simple conversations.

Predictive Personalization – Going From One-Click to Zero-Clicks

Companies will be able to assess individual shopper inventories and consumer behaviors to predict and deliver goods to homes before they even realize they are running low. Consumers will no longer change their pattern of communication when interacting with brands in order to satisfy their needs. Intelligent prediction and customization will make customers feel as if every product or brand experience was tailored just for them. Even asking for help will become easier as AI infused with emotions will make customer experience interactions smoother and streamlined across channels.

The future of Customer Experience is Artificial Intelligence.

Reference: Forbes

Artificial intelligence is popping up everywhere and changing how customers interact with brands. From chatbots to automation, artificial intelligence helps brands learn more about their customers to enhance personalization.

Below are 5 interesting use cases already where ChatBots are being used

1-800 Flowers Leverages A Chatbot To Speed Up The Customer Experience

Retailer North Face Uses Watson To Create A Personalized Shopping Experience

Ticketmaster Combats Fraud With Artificial Intelligence

Customers Buy Domino’s Pizza Through Facebook Messenger

Being able to balance speed and personalization will lead to increased customer satisfaction levels as well as the reputational benefits that follow. Now is the time for organizations to get ahead of the CX challenge before they get left behind. This is just the beginning of the automation of the Customer Experience; however as long as the human touch is modeled and enhanced, the future of CX is looking bright with savings of time for customer and business, quick responses, reduction of friction and personalization being the key wins.

Would love to get you thoughts / perspective on the future of CX and how AI and Predictive Analytics will play a part.