Will AI Depersonalise the Customer Experience?

Personalisation is big business – nobody likes to feel like just a number, and in an increasingly digital-first world, personalised customer experience is a key differentiator.

Of course, the other huge driving force in the CX space right now is artificial intelligence, with its focus on efficiency and speedy results that go far beyond what a human agent could achieve. So how do we blend both of these seemingly competing forces – is it even possible? Do you have to pick personalised CX or AI-supported CX?

We sat down with Steve Bell for Verint’s new CX Sofa Series podcast, exploring the cutting-edge developments of CX from the experts who have weathered a few “game-changing new tech” storms in their time, and we put the question to him.

Having been in the industry for over 25 years, Steve has seen many new technologies being introduced into the contact centre, some greeted with excitement and others with less enthusiasm. With all of these new technological advances, however, the underpinning theme remains the same: it’s not so much about the tech itself (as exciting as these innovations are!) but how you apply and integrate it into your organisation.

Learning from Past Mistakes

Looking back to the introduction of IVR, there was excitement as this offered 24/7 service for the first time, accelerating the speed of access to information for customers. In many cases, however, the execution was poor, and customers weren’t receiving the assistance they needed from it. As a result, IVR ended up with a bad reputation. Similarly, with the more recent trend for digital transformation, some organisations have simply taken poor processes and digitised them.

This is something all CX professionals need to bear in mind, especially when it comes to AI and its various flashy capabilities. If you’ve worked hard to deliver great CX with personalisation at its heart, you don’t want to then undermine that by rolling out AI solutions that focus on efficiency but at the expense of the overall customer experience.

Building a Strong AI Strategy

The fact is, no matter how compelling the new technology, its results are down to your implementation.
The key thing to remember is you must engage with the people in your organisation who know your customers and what they want. Then, ensure you put their insights and understanding at the heart of any new strategy. Finally, once you’ve launched your exciting new service, you continue to monitor its performance, taking feedback and revising or evolving the service as needed.

This means that you keep the focus on the customer at all times – making it less about shouting from the rooftops about what cool things your AI can do, and instead focusing on the why: delivering those excellent experiences without, crucially, any damage to those personalised relationships.

Want to hear all Steve’s insights? Listen to the full podcast.