Watch this week’s Video Review with Ken Peterson
At the end of 2023, industry analysts used their crystal ball to look into the future and speculate how technology trends will shape business in 2024 and beyond. Like most horoscopes, some of these had enough generic information that they would be true regardless, with many talking about the impact of Generative AI and its influence on these trends.
When we think about technology, particularly Generative AI, it will have a significant impact on all things Customer Experience. Generative AI is not yet ready to know what I want for breakfast on any given morning, but it can help us as humans to develop personalized and immediate responses to any given situation.
With one industry analyst, I read their entire list of trends and found a few particularly compelling trends that closely relate to the field of Customer Experience. We asked five experts in the Customer and Employee Experience space for their thoughts on these questions, which you can read about here.
I also decided to give my thoughts on these trends and how we can leverage technology to make the Customer Experience more (and not less) empathetic and human.
What technologies and processes do you think we’ll see Generative AI make a big impact in improving the Customer Experience?
Most companies will look to see how they can save money and costs. This should be part of the consideration, but I expect that we should see the investment in Generative AI as a means to allow human interactions to become more empathetic – or at least more empathetic sounding. If you consider the last time you were in touch with a human at a call center, consider they were reading a script with a decision tree. Most of these branches have a generic canned response for the agent to recite back to the caller.
At the very least, you can tell by the almost robotic voice of the agent that they are trying to read through a script that they have read dozens of times that day. At times, it can be infuriating to the caller because you recognize that the person on the other end of the phone only wants to get through that call, keep their call statistics at bottom-line focused standards and have no empathy for the pain you are going through (and let’s be honest, you are likely calling due to a problem as a last resort for solving that problem).
An immediate impact that can be made is to allow Generative AI to “listen” to the customer’s concern on that call, and when the appropriate decision tree branch is selected by the agent, have a customized script for that customer ready for the agent. It serves a few purposes, the script – while customized – will still meet the standards set forth by the brand. The customer will recognize that elements of the response include details specific to their story, improving their experience.
The agent will go from a monotonous reading of the same “approved” text to having a real dialogue with the customer. Finally, as speed increases, the responses will be quick and will result in fewer frustrations and fewer callbacks. Now that First Call Resolution can be a measurement against the Generative AI response instead of holding the agent accountable when the predetermined script doesn’t meet the customer’s needs.
What will be the biggest impact Generative AI will have in improving Customer Experience, and do you see it being used beyond “agents”?
As I mentioned before, Generative AI will (and already is) making an impact in the contact center space – whether it is with a chat bot or a live agent. It can go beyond that in the sales realm as well. There have always been “upsell recommendations” in the retail space. Some of those were easy: “Don’t forget the batteries for your electronic device”.
As many have embraced online ordering, there is almost always an upsell recommendation with every e-commerce website, but with questionable results. Recently, I purchased a single electrical junction box online, when I moved to checkout, the inevitable pop-up with a recommendation showed up. The recommendation: purchase a 3-pack of the same item. Not exactly helpful, then the recommendations at the bottom of the screen stated, “People that purchased this item also purchased” – the same item in a 3-pack, the same item in a 5-pack, and the same item in a 10-pack. Clearly, the algorithm assumes that someone purchasing one is a contractor and may need more.
It did not recommend things such as the wires, the faceplates, or the wiring twists. I would expect these recommendations to get much better as these engines become better at recognizing the differing buyer personas and their needs. Generative AI may also help us in understanding how to handle negative online reviews. Instead of a canned or templated response, AI tools will help to both prioritize reviews for response, recommend actions and provide an easy script for responding. I am not suggesting that this will take place completely outside of “human eyes”, but it will help us to become more efficient in making certain we respond.
How do you think this EX Freeze will impact Customer Experience and brand reputation?
This trend is troubling to me. From my first job at a retail grocery store, I remember the knee-jerk reaction to any downturn or economic threat was to cut employee hours and benefits. For many years, companies held onto the idea that employees were just a line item in the accounting form, and a big one at that. However, the right employees are very difficult to replace.
Even if their hours are not cut, when they see their colleagues’ hours cut, they become concerned for themselves and their colleagues (who are often also their friends). Whether as frontline retail employees or those business-to-business associates, it is important to both understand what is behind any employee churn and take action to fix it.
When I see a company cut their Employee Experience program “for just this year” to save a few dollars on a budget, the employees recognize that their voice is important and that previous measurements really were not about taking action. Instead it is just a measure for the company to brag about or pretend they were listening.
What is one trend we haven’t mentioned that you think will have a big impact on Customer Experience in 2024?
I wanted to mention this in the previous question also, but there will be a trend towards Total Experience – which will include all the touchpoints and interactions that a consumer or customer will have with a brand. That can include customer facing touchpoints such as a website or a brick and mortar branch, but also the employees along with all the “content” that can be out there about a brand and an industry.
I have already seen a trend in Customer Experience and Employee Experience programs being housed in the same department. It makes quite a bit of sense to combine them as many of the key drivers and root causes to the Customer Experience involve employees, whether it is about service or achieving some task that impacts the customer. While I have seen the Operations team take control of Customer Experience in my years in this space, and I have even seen them combined as far back as twenty years ago (you can read about some of the great combined research we did in that space here), I am seeing it more frequently in the last few years and expect it to increase in the usage of such an approach.
In many ways it makes sense as the same Operations team is responsible for the initial training of such employees, it is responsible for the activities conducted on the frontline as well as adjusting processes and policies related to the Customer Experience feedback the company receives. It is also the reason that QuestionPro offers a Total Experience package that allows a brand to have targeted tools for both Employee Experience and Customer Experience in one place, but also to connect them all together through tools such as Outerloop and SuiteCX Journey Orchestration.
Download you complimentary copy of the QuestionPro CX Trend Guide for 2024
I do not profess to be a psychic, but over the years I have been privileged to be able to see the many ways the Customer Experience industry has evolved.
This year will be no different, with some easy predictions and rapid changes – along with some scenarios that will take a little longer to be accepted as part of the way we work now.
If you have not had a chance to read the commentary from the experts in the field, you can find it here.
