Technology is a means, not an end

The digital transformation has triggered a real technological escalation. We are literally overwhelmed by on-premises and cloud solutions that can meet our every need, at least in theory. Technology represents an indispensable opportunity for innovation, but at the same time hides several pitfalls that cannot be overlooked.

While we see realities that still put-up anachronistic barriers to technological innovation, it would not be wise to encourage a blind trust in technology either. There is a wide range of hardware and software on the market. If an entrepreneur develops a business idea, the technology almost certainly exists to do so. Indeed, to really innovate, it is necessary to start from new ideas, with the courage to identify new ways forward.

To innovate business processes, one must first of all have a strategy that is functional to the business objectives, which allows one to identify the most suitable technology on the market to meet the required solutions. This is a necessary but not sufficient condition, especially when the many variables that shape the customer journey come into play. Let's see why.

Tech driven CX? Personalizing the experience

Customer relationships are an indispensable basis for the success of any business strategy. We have at our disposal increasingly comprehensive CRM (Customer Relationship Management) platforms, which allow us to automate a large part of the relationship processes.

In fact, CRM software vendors market scalable, cloud-based solutions that are very comprehensive and flexible to meet the needs of all the LoBs involved in customer interaction. The same is true for e-commerce platforms.

In the most dramatic days of the lockdown, when the physical stores were closed, many brands added e-commerce functionality to their website, effectively ensuring the survival of their business.

Anyone with a certain amount of experience in integrating IT systems knows very well that there are very few cases in which a CRM or e-commerce platform can be considered ready-to-use, if not for very basic contexts. In other words, believing that a technology can be the perfect solution for customer relations is tantamount to quickly discovering a series of problems.

The sheer number and variety of processes required to support a company's CX, both front-end and back-end, requires a robust customization of technology platforms. It is therefore essential to have a thorough understanding of business objectives in order to automate processes to make them more efficient and ensure a rapid return on investment. It cannot be improvised. Such action requires technological skills, market knowledge acquired in the field, and knowledge of customers and users and their real needs.

The fundamental role of empathy?

A CX provider today must therefore have a perfect knowledge of all the solutions available on the market, knowing how to identify the most suitable ones to meet the needs of each brand in its digital transformation path.

Brand uniqueness is at the heart of customer relationships and the cornerstone on which the customer journey is built. Technology offers significant advantages in terms of automating the hundreds of procedures that make CRM possible at various levels, especially when large numbers are involved.

However, we must not lose sight of a fundamental element of any relationship strategy: empathy. An efficient but 'cold' solution would risk undermining the prerequisites with which a brand knows how to make its relationship with the public unique. A concrete example is chatbots and virtual assistants. These are fabulous tools for automating the sales and customer care phases, saving humans most of the repetitive actions.

Artificial Intelligence technologies, in particular NLP (Natural Language Processing) have made such interfaces increasingly credible and spontaneous in their dialogue with the customer. But what is the human reaction to the robot?

However well trained, an Artificial Intelligence should not focus its attention exclusively on the content of the relationship, but on the ways in which it manifests itself.

?Technology alone is therefore not enough. What is needed today is a UX designer or even better Conversation Designer who know how to make communication with customers human and empathetic. Technology offers many solutions: from 3D avatars to the playful dynamics of gamification.?

Choosing the most successful path is an art, which makes the CX provider one of the most challenging digital professions of all.