Mastering Customer Experience In A Digital Age: How To Vet AI Solutions For CX Excellence

Leaders have to reimagine their approaches to delivering customer value and chart new paths for sustainable growth. Balancing long-term aspirations of an intelligent experience engine with short-term opportunities to improve today’s customer experiences becomes a delicate art. The challenge lies in charting a course for organizational stability and profitability while fostering a culture to embrace the efficiency and innovation that AI can deliver. To address this concern, Zendesk acquired Klaus, an Estonia-based Quality Assurance company in February of this year, with integration into the portfolio in April.

Questions CX Leaders Should Answer: Platforms

As organizations look to bring AI into their businesses, one of the most logical places to start is in customer experience, or CX, said Andrew Gilman, CMO for fast-growing solution provider NWN Corp. Leaders must explore how AI platforms can amplify the human judgment, context, creativity and originality that makes CX a potent competitive advantage. Embracing AI as a complementary force will empower CX leaders and employees to automate processes, make data-driven decisions and enable even more focus on the high-level cognitive tasks that machines cannot replicate. By fostering transparency and adhering to ethical AI principles, organizations can build trust with customers and stakeholders, safeguarding the reputation and longevity of their AI-driven ventures. This trust-building process requires continuous communication with all stakeholders, including employees, customers, regulators and partners to ensure that the AI initiatives align with societal values and expectations.

AI ‘changing everything’ about customer experience

Below are some ways that businesses can leverage AI’s capabilities to streamline processes and enhance personalization while preserving the human touch that fosters deep, meaningful customer relationships. The company noted that businesses were grasping the importance of upgrading chatbots into digital agents and plan to boost their AI investments to speed up this process. Zendesk reports that leaders are confidently preparing for the future of CX, betting big on smart customer experiences for 2024, and signalling a landmark year for CX due to new technology. Here we’ll frame what CX leaders need to do to seize the transformative potential of AI by leveraging “enterprise ready” AI tools and platforms and creating AI-enabled customer experiences. This transformation requires us to address essential questions that will not only determine the future of CX but also shape the very fabric of CX in an AI-driven world.

Questions CX Leaders Should Answer: Processes

Together, we can create a dynamic and ongoing discussion that propels us all forward in the age of AI readiness. Unpack the connection between AI and each of the pillars of CX, including customer feedback & analytics, customer engagement, customer success, customer advocacy, customer-centered transformation and customer strategy and operations. Throughout the series, we will delve deeper into the questions we’ve raised in this article and explore how they relate to various aspects of CX.

• It will also track the performance of both human and AI agents to deliver exceptional service.
• Join us today — unlock member benefits and accelerate your career, all for free.
• Albeit not the most exciting of topics, decisions for how to best shape organizational roles, responsibilities and accountabilities are essential in building an effective AI-enabled CX organization.
• Remember, the best AI for your CX isn’t merely a tool; it’s a strategic partner invested in your success — and partnering with an AI vendor who embraces that is huge.
• Embracing automation, data analytics and predictive modeling can significantly optimize workflows, leading to cost reductions, increased productivity and heightened focus on what is truly strategic.
• As we embark on this series of articles, we welcome your input and thoughts to foster an ongoing and dynamic discussion.

Use AI and Empathy to Boost Agent Performance

Together, let us explore the intricate relationship between AI and customer experience and how organizations can forge a customer-centric path in the AI-driven landscape. With your valuable insights and our collective wisdom, we can shape a CX future that harnesses the full potential of AI and deliver unparalleled customer experiences. Our sister community, Reworked, gathers the world’s leading employee experience and digital workplace professionals. And our newest community, VKTR, is home for AI practitioners and forward thinking leaders focused on the business of enterprise AI. Today the CMSWire community consists of over 5 million influential customer experience, customer service and digital experience leaders, the majority of whom are based in North America and employed by medium to large organizations.

The report also found that 77% of respondents think traditional CX will give way to radically different industry dynamics due to the influence of AI. “AI CX is much more advanced than rigid rules-based chatbots that rely on buttons and keywords,” said Mehta. “It needs to be able to decipher the intent of a person’s message using natural language understanding. The customer service department has a large number of tickets that AI models can process. “AI CX is the perfect pairing of artificial intelligence and human intelligence meeting to satisfy the human customer,” said Muddu Sudhakar, CEO of Aisera.

The role of AI vendors and partnerships

There also needs to be a unified environment where data is consolidated and easily integrated across customer touchpoints. It shouldn’t matter what channel a customer is using; the main focus is on getting the right insights. Will we see a day where a DXP provider makes the leap and acquires contact center or customer service and support? While AI offers powerful tools for reaching marketing goals, it’s critical to never lose sight of the value of human insight and creativity—the essential ingredients for ultimately building lasting customer relationships. While AI offers marketing teams new capabilities, the challenge is making sure it enhances marketing efforts instead of overshadowing them.

• In this paradigm, CX organisations will become leaner, faster and more effective, with artificial intelligence (AI) at the helm to streamline processes, personalise engagement and handle a higher volume of customer interactions.
• Together, let us explore the intricate relationship between AI and customer experience and how organizations can forge a customer-centric path in the AI-driven landscape.
• The best AI for CX doesn’t just enhance customer interactions; it integrates across your organization, ensuring every team member benefits from unified insights.
• According to Forrester, consumer perceptions of customer experience quality reached their lowest point since the firm launched its annual CX Index in 2016.
• Embracing AI as a complementary force will empower CX leaders and employees to automate processes, make data-driven decisions and enable even more focus on the high-level cognitive tasks that machines cannot replicate.

Companies also do not effectively analyze the data, such as for intent, sentiment, and emotion. This press release contains forward-looking statements including those related to our CX transformation, contact center momentum, and growth in new 8×8 AI-powered CX products. Readers are cautioned that such forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual events or our actual results to differ materially from those expressed in any such forward-looking statements. Readers are directed to 8×8’s periodic and other reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for a description of such risks and uncertainties. These risks could reduce the growth of our CX business, AI-powered solutions, and contact center momentum which could impact our revenues and profitability. As businesses prepare for an AI-driven future, the need for cross-functional collaboration, strong leadership and well-defined AI governance has never been greater.

AI shouldn’t be thought of as a stand-alone function or treated as an initiative that’s solely driven by one member of the C-suite. Every functional leader must understand how automation can impact the experience the organization is creating for its customers. This requires leaders to understand how their organization’s technology overlaps in terms of existing capabilities, training and user knowledge. Data for the Customer experience trends report originated from two survey sources. Zendesk surveyed 2,818 consumers and 4,441 customer service and experience leaders, agents, and technology buyers from 20 countries and organisations ranging from small business to enterprise, during July and August 2023. Imagine AI not as an isolated tool but as the connective tissue across every touchpoint of your customer’s journey.

Completeness: Connecting Every Dot in the CX Journey

Nearly nine in 10 (88%) of UK CX leaders (83% global) using generative AI in CX reported positive ROI, with Zendesk saying this proves that these changes set a new standard for successful CX. It’s not a question of whether CX leaders should use AI to enable their organizations. Our research tells us that CX organizations are already using AI, whether leaders know it or not. CX organizations are building AI enablement into their existing tools and processes. And employees are leveraging “shadow AI” to assist with their work and customer engagement without company knowledge or approval. Furthermore, “embedded AI” — the use of common third-party tools that are rapidly AI-enabling their products — is driving AI adoption in unknowable and, therefore, difficult-to-control ways.

Regardless of where customer experience strategy sits within an organization’s hierarchy, every C-suite leader must embrace a CXO mindset for their technology investments to impact customer engagement and perceptions. Mike Nash, CXO at HP, points out that customer experience is part of everyone’s job, telling Forbes that helping everyone at HP understand their role in the customer journey is key to becoming more customer-focused as an organization. This is largely due to AI chatbots evolving into skilled digital agents, playing key roles in customer service and the overall customer experience. Zendesk noted that their ability to mirror brand styles and evaluate their customers’ feelings and desires enables them to deliver tailored, accurate responses. CMSWire’s Marketing & Customer Experience Leadership channel is the go-to hub for actionable research, editorial and opinion for CMOs, aspiring CMOs and today’s customer experience innovators.

This AI and machine learning revolution presents an unprecedented opportunity for CX leaders to become AI-ready and embrace the changes that will fundamentally reshape the economy. The report surveyed over 1,300 senior CX leaders and found overwhelming interest in AI. 81% of CX leaders believe AI will change CX for the better and 86% believe CX will be utterly transformed over the next three years.