In the recent interview I had with world-renowned futurist, influencer, and thought leader Bernard Marr, we discussed the role of AI in the future of customer experience and the three things that are driving its adoption:
- Customers becoming more and more digital
- Hiring, retaining, and finding good, loyal employees is becoming more difficult and more expensive
- Macroeconomics: global economic uncertainty is driving a push toward operational efficiency
Over the course of our conversation, we discussed the challenges faced with the mass adoption of AI, and how NICE is helping companies apply AI in a way that provides intelligent solutions to their problems.
Companies must look at consumer behaviors in order to proactively reach customers in a way that meets their needs. We know that customer demand for self-service has increased over time, particularly as people become more and more digitally savvy in all aspects of their lives. Using AI-driven insights to better understand those consumer behaviors has allowed us at NICE to create personalized customer experiences, becoming a key differentiator for our clients.
But AI cannot do this alone. To power the future and be successful, AI still needs to work in tandem with humans. Technology provides the necessary tools - but requires engaged employees who know how to use them. This is crucial in a customer experience environment, where there are still so many situations in which AI alone cannot carry the entire interaction. Human touch is necessary to help AI decipher our complex emotions and behavioral patterns.
As customers’ needs evolve, so must the way companies interact with them. As customer demand increases, now is the time for AI to step in and show how it can assist agents in real-time to quickly (and accurately) resolve customer needs and overcome any obstacles that stand in their way. Delivering to the agent desktop a summary of prior customer self-service conversations, made along the customer’s journey before they reached the human-assisted interaction, along with calling out specific AI-driven insights on the customer’s need and potential next steps, can help create an empowered, well-informed agent and generate customer experiences that are streamlined and feel more seamless.
AI should also be positioned not only as an advantage to companies’ customer service but as a way to impact their agents’ internal development. It can be used to relieve staff of mundane, repetitive tasks and allow them to feel more engaged, with AI-driven personalized training and gamification. Making the role of customer support agents more rewarding through gamification and enabling staff to use their long-valued human skills to solve problems will create authentic connections and should be the foundation for any organization.
To learn more about how smart, custom CX built AI can help agents thrive and customers get what they need, anytime, anywhere, listen to the full interview here.
