Asked her views on single customer view and the role of AI, Nina gave us some insightful examples of where AI can support in providing a better customer experience. A problem for CX agents is being able to make use of existing customer information when responding to queries – there may be too much information to digest, and/or that information can be hard to find quickly. AI can enable agents to be rapidly equipped with the relevant information, resulting in more effective customer service and improved first time resolution for contacts. Information will be better sourced, better compiled, and better presented to both agent and customer.
AI can also process and analyse query data at volumes and pace that humans cannot match – which has the potential to result in higher quality data for decision making. This is particularly relevant for call centres, where call transcripts contain a wealth of customer insight but an overwhelming amount to process. Understanding the nature of the conversation between the customer and agent is an important step in understanding and improving both the customer’s journey and the agent’s performance. What are your customers calling you about? Were their queries resolved satisfactorily? Current standard practice is for customer agents to record the topic of the call and the action taken from drop-down lists. This information is then used for analysis, but the data is often imperfect due to (for example) current categorisation being too broad or the agent simply selecting the contact type at the top of the list.
With AI tools, you can better categorise those conversations by subject and by resolution. This gives you a richer data set to act on, helping you get into a loop of continuous improvement as a result.
AI can help organisations do things better whilst shifting to lower cost channels and improving the efficiency and effectiveness of service. As channel shift benefits both the business in terms of cost and the customer in terms of reducing the time of contact, it’s often a key objective in organisations’ CX plans.
Ben explained the solution isn't just about improving navigation on websites or helping people find information easier. To really move the dial, we must look at driving behaviour change. The big benefit lies in proactively providing information to customers and changing the nature of their interactions, so no contact is required or when it is, it’s of higher value.
When exploring where AI can be utilised to deliver even greater benefit, Ben thinks a good example candidate is goal-based journeys which allow customers to indicate what they're trying to achieve or using AI to predict a need. AI engines can complete the required task on behalf of the customer or provide the relevant information through automation and algorithmic decision making.
There are a lot of benefits that AI used well can successfully deliver in this channel shift challenge. And the key word here is successfully, because the risk is sending customers off with the wrong information instead of addressing their needs. That's going to undermine trust in your ability to support the customer and will likely result in more contacts than you had before.
To echo Transform’s CEO, Emma Robertson’s thoughts: you need the right data fundamentals in place to feed the AI engines the right information.
Pulling quality data together can be hard and this is a fundamental challenge for many organisations. This is partly a technical challenge, but the biggest barriers are organisational and cultural, because there’s no incentivisation for different parts of the business to get those data sets in one place.
Here Ben gives a simple example: a single piece of technology owned by a certain part of the business might perform a task for a particular part of the CX and is fed by the type of data that makes it work. Pulling other data sets in the organisation or connecting that piece of technology to other pieces might seem reasonable, but most of the time people aren’t incentivised to build it that way.
The most successful way to encourage that process is orientating your strategy around the customer by setting goals and KPIs that are customer-focused; for instance, focussing on customer satisfaction, Net Promoter Scores(NPS) and customer lifetime value instead of silo-type KPIs. If all parts of the business are pushed to improve and deliver on those goals and KPIs, there’s a better understanding of why it’s important to connect technologies and data, resulting in a more seamless journey for customers.
Having the right data and foundations in place is still critical and doesn’t come without its challenges. A clear plan and execution of data technology and engineering to pool and connect data is required. Once you have these strong foundations, you can start to do more advanced and sophisticated, value-adding activities, such as implementing some of the AI solutions mentioned.
Transform is well positioned to address these types of challenges in its different elements, from creating a CX journey, to meeting the needs of different types of customers, and looking at historical data to build predictive models. We can bring together different capabilities around research, service design and data & analytics to understand what the experience should look like. We also have a wide expertise to connect data and build the technology and data engineering needed to enable solutions and experiences. Finally, we support organisations to sustain this inside their businesses, as well as to organise goals around the customer.
If you’re interested in knowing how we can help you pave your way into a better customer experience and put the right foundations in place, drop us a note at transformation@TransformUK.com and we’ll put you in contact with one of our experts.
We’re also sponsoring the Customer Experience Conference 2024 in London on March 5th, where hundreds of CX trailblazers will gather to discuss challenges and opportunities in the market. Transform’s CEO, Emma Robertson, will be there answering questions on the “The Impact and Opportunities of AI” panel. If you’re planning on attending, we’d love to meet you there. In the meantime, read Emma’s interview ahead of the conference by clicking here.
