What's 🔥 In #CX At The Moment 😎?

Hi everyone,

I hope you’re all staying fit & healthier than my dog who had to get an Enema this week … He’s on the mend now though 🐶!

This week’s newsletter is a 🧠 dump of a few hot topics that I’ve come across whilst trawling the internet for CX content.

The newsletter will be back to what it does best next week - pumping out those CEXy stats!

Early Impacts Of Generative AI on CX 🛠️

A recent survey conducted by The Harris Poll found that within the next three years, most business leaders expect to adopt generative AI to make employees more productive (72%) and enhance customer service (66%).

The survey produced insights from >1000 director level professionals from companies with 1000+ employees and found the following:

• 81% respondents said their company has already established (or are in the process) of establishing policies / strategies around generative AI.

• The largest concerns around generative AI relate to quality and control (51%), reduction of human innovation (39%), cost of implementation (38%) & legal / regulatory compliance (35%).

Large UK Telecom Provider (BT) Plans To Replace 10,000 Jobs With AI By 2030 🙅🏻‍♂️

"Whenever you get new technologies you can get big changes," said chief executive Philip Jansen.

He said "generative AI gives us confidence we can go even further".

Philip Jansen said AI would make services faster, better and more seamless, adding that the changes would not mean customers will "feel like they are dealing with robots".

"We are multi-channel, we are online, we have 450 stores and that's not changing at all," he said.

"There are plenty of opportunities for our customers to deal with people at BT, plenty of people to speak to."

Source: BBC News.

5 Initiatives IKEA Have Recently Implemented To Deliver A Better Customer Experience 🛌

#1 - Chatbot for WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger & LINE - similar to the website chatbot that we are familiar with in Western countries, IKEA has rolled out a similar chatbot across other channels in Singapore, Phillipines, Malaysia, Mexico & Thailand.

#2 - API integrations into delivery systems - IKEA has recognised that 30-40% of calls to their customer service teams relate to the status of deliveries. To combat this, they are using APIs to connect back-end delivery systems to front-end customer portals, ensuring customers are regularly updated without having to call.

#3 - Conversational Commerce - I compare this concept to Netflix recommendations, but in a conversational format - the article quotes an IKEA employee who explains the concept well - ““If we can tell you we don’t have this item, but we have another one that costs an extra $10, we can send you a link and you can look at it on your device. But what if we can help you with the purchase right now? I think it’s something that customers will appreciate.”

#4 - Enterprise Data Platform - IKEA is in the process of building their own EDP / CDP to “leverage data gains in both operational and marketing efficiency, but also customer experience where we want to deliver more personalised engagement”.

#5 - Remote Planning Service - IKEA are building a service which allows customers to furnish a kitchen without travelling to a physical store. It is an all-in-one solution which allows customers to gain inspiration, virtually connect to kitchen specialists and go through follow-ups before they make their purchase. This is a use case where Augmented Reality (AR) could become extremely valuable in the near future.

Source: computerweekly.com

McKinsey Prediction: The Future Of Customer Service 🔮

McKinsey has recently talked about what the future of AI-powered customer service will look like. Below is a quick excerpt of the article, as well as a visualisation of how AI could augment self-service & frontline channels 👇

Emerging Use Case: The “Concierge” ChatBot 🤖

I recently stumbled across this article from Zendesk about the increasing effectiveness of Chatbots. I’ve never been a fan of chatbots as they’ve lacked intelligence & empathy. I do believe that this is going to change drastically within the next year due to the recent inflection point brought upon by ChatGPT 👇

“Chatbots are [now] giving customers a human voice to talk to without an agent needing to be present”

Within healthcare, having an empathetic, human voice is key to providing the best care. Yet professional resources are tight, which can slow down service significantly. Integrating humanised chatbots and AI technology has helped to provide efficient individualised care within the healthcare industry.

AI-assisted nurse chats connect patients to a live nurse who is supported by predictive AI technology. This helps the nurse automate basic tasks and deal with multiple patients while still providing individualised care.

I like the notion of this use case and really think that intelligible chatbots could act as a “personal assistant” or “concierge” to higher-skilled workers.

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