The Urgency of Machine Learning in the Customer Experience

THE URGENCY OF MACHINE LEARNING IN THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE 4 Things To Do Now

The Urgency of Machine Learning in the Customer Experience: An Edify eBook

THE EXPERTS HAVE DISCUSSED, assessed, and pontificated the rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) for years already. The pros, cons, risks, expense, and the dreaded C-H-A-N-G-E. As it turns out, the time for thinking about it has come and gone - the time to act is here. But there are some critical clarifications that must be pointed out before anyone does anything.

What most people mean when they talk about Artificial Intelligence is actually Machine Learning.

First and foremost, the goal of AI is to create computing platforms that can mimic human intelligence to complete tasks. Clearly, this is not yet possible. What most people mean when they talk about AI is actually ML. ML gives systems the ability to learn and improve with each experience. ML accomplishes tasks by processing large amounts of data, recognizing patterns, and adjusting the response. When it comes to customer experience, ML is the muscle that makes smart bots smart.

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The Urgency of Machine Learning in the Customer Experience: An Edify eBook

EVOLVING SELF-SERVICE TECHNOLOGIES With growing customer demand to fully resolve issues on their own (Gartner says 81% of customers across industries attempt to resolve matters themselves before reaching out to a live rep), old-school interactive voice response (IVR) systems just won’t cut it. Customers will find someone else to buy from before they will put up with voicemail jail. Evolving self-service technologies and leveraging the vast capabilities and benefits that ML can bring should be part of every customer experience strategy, starting now.

81% of customers across the industries attempt to resolve matters themselves before reaching out to a live agent.

-Gartner

DO

DON’T

Pick CX technology that offers unified self-service & intelligent bot assistance.

Front-end the CX with a simple IVR & be done.

Let bots & humans work together.

Put a bot in a silo - no matter how great a bot you think you bought.

Send data the bot collected to the human along with the interaction.

Make customers repeat themselves.

Ever. Not even once.

Pull in experts from across the business to solve the customer’s problem.

Transfer them all over creation hoping someone else will deal with it.

Invest wisely.

Cut corners.

Act.

Wait.

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The Urgency of Machine Learning in the Customer Experience: An Edify eBook

THE BATTLEGROUND FOR SUPERIORITY One of the biggest mistakes organizations make is rushing to beat the problem. This translates into investing too hastily in often inadequate technology that causes the opposite of the intended result. For example, purchasing and implementing a self-service solution to take some load off of agents is a good intention that will perhaps cut some expenses associated with staffing and give customers a DIY option. But, what happens when that solution - chosen in haste - isn’t good enough for the long term? Customers probably call in, don’t get the support they need, disconnect, and then call in again hoping for a different result - actually increasing your call volume, exactly what you did not want to happen. Customers get frustrated.

They yell at the bad IVR and probably at the human, too, which stinks for morale, turnover, customer and employee satisfaction, and repeat business.

Accenture says it best: “The battleground for superiority is no longer category for dominance, it is customer engagement.” Take the time to understand customers, what they want, the existing technology environment and its limitations, employees and their skill sets.

And then do these four things:

1. GET A GOOD BOT

Do the research. See what your choices are. Figure out what bot is going to make the most sense for your current environment and also for where you see your organization and your CX strategy going.

You want a bot that’s going to work as an extension of your human team, giving customers a personal, high-quality, efficient experience.

You want a bot that’s going to help customers fully complete a transaction or resolve and issue. You want it to be flexible, scalable, and capable of anything you set its “mind” to. And you don’t want to need a PhD in computer science to set it up.

“The battleground for superiority is no longer category dominance, it is customer engagement.” edify.cx

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The Urgency of Machine Learning in the Customer Experience: An Edify eBook

2. START WITH THE EASY STUFF

What are your most straightforward yet voluminous interactions?

Do people need to schedule appointments, change service times, or check an account status? Put your new bot on the road to success by starting with your most common interactions. Make the bot’s first job to take over engagements that don’t actually need a human touch to be stellar. And the, give the bot access to all the information it needs to be the best automatic problem-solver your customers never knew they’d love.

3. SYNC UP WITH HUMANS

We know bots don’t get it right all the time and some customers actually do want to engage with a human. You need a bot that uses sentiment analysis and natural language understanding to know when it’s time to call for backup. Blending unassisted service with assisted service in a seamless way is where so many CX executions break down. In most cases, customers are forced to switch channels and all the information exchanged in the previous interaction does not travel with them. As a customer, there is nothing quite as irritating as this. But, a well-built communications platform with a built-in smart bot will automatically deliver the consistency your customers demand and, frankly, deserve.

4. MEASURE & TWEAK

No stellar CX strategy or implementation is every really “done” so don’t kid yourself. To get it right in your customers’ eyes, you should be thinking of CX as a living, breathing, evolving thing. Accenture says, “with good design and implementation, we have repeatedly seen more than 80% of chat sessions resolved by a chatbot, which would have otherwise been handled by a human in a chat session or call.” That’s a great statistic and something everyone should strive for. Be honest, if you can offload 10% or 15% of what you are now paying humans to handle, isn’t that a win? Yes, of course it is. Learn from that win, isolate what’s going well, replicated that, change what’s not working, and keep going. Then, get to 20% and 50% and 80% from there.

Delivering even a better-than-average customer experience takes a lot of work. So if you really want your business to live its best life, you’ve got to seriously commit to the process. The upside is there are leaders out there to hold your hand, technology to do the dirty work, and customers just waiting to fall madly in love with you.

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With good design & implementation, we have repeatedly seen more than 80% of chat sessions resolved by a chatbot, which would have otherwise been handled by a human.

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Edify connects businesses with customers and employees with each other, making business communications as easy as personal ones. Its flagship product, Edify Huddle CX, unites contact center (CCaaS), unified communications (UCaaS), and real-time communications platform (CPaaS/API) functionality in a cloud-native solution that lets users move seamlessly among channels within one conversation, just as we do on our phones. Edify removes all the risk once associated with moving to the cloud by delivering global availability, real-time redundancy, no-waste pricing, and a 100% SLA uptime guarantee. Edify is a Google Chrome Enterprise Recommended partner for the contact center. Learn more at edify.cx.

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