Driving CX Innovation: 3 Ways AI is Redefining the Future of Customer Experience

AI. It’s got the world abuzz – and with good reason. Innovative AI-based technologies are providing exciting new opportunities for businesses to optimize customer journeys and experiences. NewVantage research found that 91% of leading businesses have ongoing investments in AI, while McKinsey estimates that generative AI could add the equivalent of $2.6 trillion to $4.4 trillion of value annually.

But what exactly is generative AI, the topic that’s on everyone’s lips in 2023? In simple terms, generative AI is a type of artificial intelligence technology that uses advanced algorithms to produce high-quality content such as text, images, code, videos and more. Think ChatGPT, DALL-E, Bard and Bing. It’s already having an enormous impact across the world in different sectors, particularly in CX. A recent Gartner poll found that 38% of executives said customer experience and retention was the primary purpose of their generative AI investments. This was followed by revenue growth (26%), cost optimization (17%) and business continuity (7%).

So, what impact will generative AI have in the future, and what advantages can we expect it to deliver to CX?

1. Delivering individualized experiences and enhanced content production

In this customer-first digital age, it’s critical to recognize and treat each customer as an individual and deliver an experience that feels unique to them. By harnessing both traditional and generative AI, businesses can achieve this goal, efficiently producing and delivering individualized content at scale that solves customers’ problems and keeps them engaged at every stage of the journey.

Let’s imagine a person who wants to upgrade their home insurance. They visit the insurer’s website and an AI chatbot instantly recognizes them as a previous customer and welcomes them back by name. The chatbot proceeds to ask questions, which are all based on their previous interactions, preferences, specific behaviors and needs. Because the customer has previously inquired about higher-value home insurance but never completed the application process, the website also updates the content the customer sees on the page, serving up unique messaging and offers designed to help them move towards conversion. It’s generative AI that is creating those personalized chatbot responses and the unique messaging and images seen by the customer. Meanwhile, a Customer Journey Orchestration platform using traditional AI is working to effortlessly connect channels, analyze all available data, predict the customer’s path and decide the right content to serve up to keep them moving.

2. Accelerating reactions and responses

Delivering real-time experiences is critical to building strong relationships, fostering trust and ensuring customers remain engaged and moving towards their goals. In fact, according to Forrester CEO, George Colony, “Real-time CX does two things: 1) It delights customers now, and 2) it shows sophistication and responsiveness — which enhances a company brand. And as our analysts have shown, companies with the best customer experience increase revenue at two times the rate of those with the worst. Money is on the line.”

Businesses must be equipped to respond to customer needs in real-time, delivering the seamless experiences they want across all touchpoints and every stage of their journey. Empowered by AI technologies, businesses can deliver real-time automated and individualized responses to customer inquiries on demand, at scale. This reduces customer wait times, streamlines processes and improves efficiency. It also enhances human capabilities, automating time-consuming processes which frees up resources so teams can focus on strategic priorities.

3. Optimizing CX with content intelligence

Ryan Skinner, Principal Analyst at Forrester, defines content intelligence as a “technology that helps content understand itself – what it’s about, how it speaks, how effective it is at accomplishing certain goals, what emotion it calls to mind”. In essence, content lets you know what content works and what content to use to achieve your CX goals. Through data mining, language processing and machine learning, it analyzes all content at speed to uncover patterns and insights. Businesses leverage these insights to optimize content creation and distribution and ensure the most effective next-best actions are delivered to every customer.

Potential risks of AI

AI affords many benefits but it’s still in its infancy. As such, it is not without its risks and there is still trepidation about using AI for decision-making and actioning within customer journeys. This is why it’s so important for business leaders to stay abreast of changes in the space and implement strategies that mitigate these risks.

Three risks associated with content intelligence and AI

1. Content reliability
   AI-generated content can often be biased, inappropriate or misleading.
2. A lack of human oversight
   AI-generated content can be unique and specific to the prompt provided, yet the lack of human review or guidance can easily result in content produced that is at odds with the brand or its customers.
3. Potential for negative experiences
   Generative AI models without human insight may inadvertently create harmful or negative experiences, straying from the intended goal of the prompt provided.

Three strategies to help mitigate the risks

1. Human review
   Incorporating human insight in the process of reviewing and approving content helps to ensure outputs align with brand values and guidelines and customer preferences.
2. Utilize moderation tech
   AI-empowered content moderation systems can be integrated to filter out or flag inappropriate content.
3. Ongoing revision and optimization of AI models
   It’s vital to continually review and optimize AI models, fine tuning based on new insights and input from human moderators.

Looking to the future

As the prominence of AI in businesses grows, the working landscape we know today will shift as the time and resources required to complete routine tasks dramatically decrease. With time and learning, AI will become an essential part in the delivery of hyper-personalized and dynamic experiences that transform customer journeys and ensure CX success. What this looks like, time will only tell. But if recent advancements are anything to go by, it will mean every single customer engagement channel being AI-driven, conversational channels that personalize each customer interaction being the norm, and real-time data being used to optimize customer interactions in the moment.

There is immense potential for traditional AI and generative AI to transform CX forever. As solutions utilizing AI progress and their usage grows, businesses must embrace this power if they are to evolve their customer experiences and remain competitive.

Want to know more? Get in touch with Alterian today to chat and find out how Alterian’s Real-Time CX platform can benefit your business using the power of AI.

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