An overwhelming majority (90%) of consumer experience (CX) leaders rate their ability to personalise customers’ experiences as excellent, but 84% of consumers say most companies could do a better job on this front. The gap widens when we look at the impact of AI (artificial intelligence) in delivering these experiences.
When it comes to AI-powered chatbots, 82% of consumers in India believe chatbots should have the same level of expertise and quality as highly skilled human agents. Yet only 30% of CX leaders say their bots are at the level of being more advanced digital agents. And a further gap can be seen in trust. 91% of CX leaders in India believe their customers trust that they are doing enough to protect their data, but customers disagree – 73% of customers believe most businesses are not doing enough to protect their data.
While AI can help businesses respond to the urgency to close this CX gap, leaders must ensure they approach AI implementation responsibly, transparently and accurately. If AI isn’t trained on CX-specific data, it won’t be able to understand common customer questions or solve them.
In turn, for customers to put their faith in AI solutions, they have to believe that they can understand the sentiment and intent behind every query to deliver solutions quickly and accurately. It helps to start small with less risky requests to build customer confidence and then work up to more complex issues.
Adopting CX solutions that pass on relevant information like order history and account details gets agents up to speed quickly, improving the overall customer experience. Since not all AI predictions are accurate, businesses can adopt CX solutions that offer AI confidence scores to ensure those acting on the recommendation know the level of accuracy. When AI is less than confident, it should immediately get a human involved.
Data privacy and security are also important aspects of improving customer trust. AI should be used, where appropriate and necessary, to enhance the existing protections put in place for businesses and their end customers, including data anonymisation, restricted live chat usage, opt-outs for customers, and robust data retention and deletion capabilities.
Customers have been clear on what they want from businesses. While AI adoption can help greatly improve the customer experience gap, it can also deliver what customers want – speed in issue resolution. When AI can help businesses do that, it’s the right tool for the job. The human agent continues to play an important role though. Incorporating balanced strategies can help effectively bridge the CX gap, which in itself is a significant competitive advantage.
(The author is the Regional Vice President of Sales in India & SAARC at Zendesk)
