Want to integrate AI into your CX strategy? Take a pragmatic and agile approach

Last week, we shared ChatGPT’s answer on how investments in AI can help you change the game for value creation for your company’s investments in CX. This week we’ll explore the second of ten questions we gave ChatGPT a chance to answer first, before providing our own thoughts on how well ChatGPT did and adding additional perspective where we think ChatGPT could have gone deeper.

This week’s question: What are the best practices for integrating AI into a company's CX strategy and operations, and how can this be done in a way that aligns with business goals and values?

ChatGPT’s answer (repeated here, verbatim from ChatGPT):

Integrating AI into a company's CX (customer experience) strategy and operations can provide numerous benefits, such as improved customer satisfaction, increased efficiency, and enhanced personalization. However, it is essential to do so in a way that aligns with the company's business goals and values. Here are some best practices for integrating AI into CX strategy and operations:

1. Define the business goals and values: Before integrating AI into CX, it is crucial to define the company's business goals and values. This will help ensure that the AI technology is aligned with the company's overall mission and objectives.
2. Identify the CX pain points: Identify the CX pain points that AI can help address. This will enable the company to determine which AI capabilities are most relevant and where they can have the most significant impact.
3. Implement AI incrementally: Rather than trying to implement AI across the entire CX operation at once, start small and gradually expand. This will allow the company to test the technology and make adjustments as needed.
4. Educate customers and employees: Ensure that customers and employees are educated about the benefits of AI and how it is being used. This will help build trust and alleviate any concerns.
5. Monitor and measure performance: Continuously monitor and measure the performance of AI in CX operations. This will enable the company to identify areas for improvement and make adjustments as needed.
6. Ensure transparency and ethical use: Ensure that AI is being used ethically and transparently. This includes ensuring that customer data is being used appropriately and that the technology is not being used to discriminate against certain groups.
7. Involve cross-functional teams: Involve cross-functional teams in the AI integration process. This will ensure that the technology is aligned with the overall business strategy and that all stakeholders are on board.

In summary, integrating AI into CX strategy and operations requires careful consideration and planning. By following these best practices, companies can ensure that the technology is aligned with their business goals and values, and that it provides the intended benefits to customers and employees.

Our Take: Chat GPT’s response is pretty good at providing some initial, comprehensive guidance.?It identifies several best practices for integrating AI into your company’s CX strategy and provides several useful “watch outs” to make sure you can scale your strategy and address potential change management barriers to adoption. Not bad for a bot!?But just like last week, ChatGPT stayed at 30,000 feet, and does not delve into any specific points. However, staying at a high level isn’t necessarily bad, when you consider that you could ask it follow up questions.?In fact, it makes ChatGPT an adept conversationalist; if we want it to elaborate on a point, we can ask it to do so, as we would a human.

An important theme that stands out from ChatGPT’s response is that capturing value from investments in AI is best done in stages, with attention required for how it will impact your organization. Let’s elaborate on this using one potential use case for AI to illustrate this point further.?Let’s say one of your prioritized use cases for AI is to enable “low/no touch” interactions with your brand via the combination of digital self-service on your website or mobile app, combined with a chatbot to address customer questions.?Without great execution, customers will be frustrated and seek to talk to a live agent, reducing adoption of your website and the behaviors you are seeking to promote among customers.?This would likely lead to increased call volume to your call center from dissatisfied customers.?Moreover, if you don’t engage your employees in the design of the experience, your call center agents are likely to distrust the information shared with them summarizing the customers’ past interactions with the chatbot.

Had we continued this conversation with ChatGPT beyond its initial high-level answer, it would’ve gone further into how you can work iteratively and pragmatically, using an agile approach over sprints and applying quality management practices. By adopting MVP thinking and constantly iterating on your approach to apply AI for CX, you can apply a steady stream of insights for how to drive continuous improvement across moments that matter in the customer journey (for more on MVP thinking, check out my book review for The Lean Startup.)

Now, consider how your own organization is integrating AI into your CX strategy. Do you have alignment on the right use cases to focus on for value creation???Are you starting with an MVP and working over a series of incremental stages to refine and improve your approach, ensuring careful attention to change management along the way?

For next week’s blog, we’ll be exploring ChatGPT’s answer to question 3 about how to balance CX innovation with customer-centricity and empathy.?I’ll continue to post weekly on this topic every Wednesday covering each of the 10 questions, collaborating with some of our strategic partners for JourneySpark Consulting for some of these blogs. I’ll also continue to post one of my book reviews for my favorite ten business books every Friday. If you’d like to jump ahead to see all ten reviews now, click here to check them out.

Thanks to Zack Yoelson-Angeline who collaborated on this blog!