Artificial intelligence in customer experience

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Artificial intelligence in customer experience is the use and development of artificial intelligence (AI) to aid and improve customer experience (sometimes abbreviated to CX AI). [1]

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Chatbots are often seen as the first step in the development of AI within the industry, but more tailored offerings are slowly becoming available. The use of artificial intelligence in the space has since become more diverse than simply chatbots, with AI underpinning entire CX cloud platforms now used at major corporations. Contact center as a service (CCaaS) has become a core solution of the CX (customer experience) industry, with the CCaaS market size expected to reach $17.19 Billion by 2030 in the United States alone. [2]

History

As with many AI applications, CX AI early implementation case studies have demonstrated that AI can increase the quality of customer interactions and therefore the overall experience that organizations can provide. [3] This in turn has suggested a higher return on investment and/or revenue as a result. [4] The beginning of the revolution of customer experience and the use of machine learning was with chatbots. [5] The use of this type of AI can be traced back to Alan Turing in 1950, when the Church–Turing thesis suggested that computers could use "formal reasoning" to reach conclusions.

In 2017, Meta produced one of the first breakthroughs for everyday use of AI for customer experience when it allowed Facebook users to create their own messaging bots for free on its Facebook messenger platform. The main focus of this was to both automate and improve customer experience and interaction. [6]

In 2023, CCaaS vendors began announcing the integration of ChatGPT’s generative AI into their CX solutions. Generative AI adds a layer of semantics into AI outputs. This was a major breakthrough for conversational AI. Using natural language processing and conversational AI, chatbots could enhance the level of service they could provide, speaking to customers in an easy-to-understand and conversational tone. [7]

Today, AI is at the forefront of improving customer experience. It has become more accelerated by early signs that customer satisfaction can be greatly increased by CCaaS solutions that focus on AI. With greater satisfaction comes more customer loyalty and/or higher sales conversions for new customers. [8]

Applications

Currently the main location for the application of CX AI in the sector is in contact centers. Historically, contact centers were simply known as call centers, but in recent years differentiation developed between the two terms. Call centers provide phone support, while contact centers also provide support via digital channels in addition to analogue phone systems. Contact centers are therefore seen as a complete customer service solution, where as call centers simply cover one aspect of customer interactions. [9]

In CX, a term often used in the industry is journey orchestration. Solutions have been produced in the last decade to help companies enhance that journey by better understanding the needs of the customer. The execution of those interactions was primarily human-led until recently, when CX AI became an option for organizations in the CCaaS market. In very basic terms, customers would initiate a journey and based on the customer interaction, it would be up to a human agent to decide what the next best step was in that customer journey. Now CX AI can effectively guide every customer journey based on a clear understanding of what past customers in that situation have reacted well to, rather than human intuition or the experience of the customer service representative. [10] The use of CX AI is becoming more common each year, with major providers demonstrating big revenue increases year-over-year in the AI sector. [11]

CX Today documented examples of the application of AI and analytics to customer journey orchestration technology. CX Today documented how organizations used AI to map the customer journey and correlate agent behaviors with higher customer sentiment ratings which provides a roadmap for improvement. [12] AI can be used in a number of ways to achieve seamless customer journey orchestration, from analyzing silence on calls, identifying call drivers and providing appropriate next-best responses to given situations. [13]

As a part of improving CX, AI is also improving the employee experience. AI is able to automate tasks to free up time for contact center agents to focus on higher priority tasks. For example, AI can be used for auto summarization. This means that instead of human agents having to summarize customer interactions now AI can do it, saving organizations time and money. [14]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Call centre</span> Office dealing with a large volume of enquiries by telephone

A call centre or call center is a managed capability that can be centralised or remote that is used for receiving or transmitting a large volume of enquiries by telephone. An inbound call centre is operated by a company to administer incoming product or service support or information inquiries from consumers. Outbound call centres are usually operated for sales purposes such as telemarketing, for solicitation of charitable or political donations, debt collection, market research, emergency notifications, and urgent/critical needs blood banks. A contact centre is a further extension of call centres telephony based capabilities, administers centralised handling of individual communications, including letters, faxes, live support software, social media, instant message, and email.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chatbot</span> Program that simulates conversation

A chatbot is a software application or web interface that is designed to mimic human conversation through text or voice interactions. Modern chatbots are typically online and use generative artificial intelligence systems that are capable of maintaining a conversation with a user in natural language and simulating the way a human would behave as a conversational partner. Such chatbots often use deep learning and natural language processing, but simpler chatbots have existed for decades.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Customer service</span> Provision of service to customers

Customer service is the assistance and advice provided by a company through phone, online chat, and e-mail to those who buy or use its products or services. Each industry requires different levels of customer service, but towards the end, the idea of a well-performed service is that of increasing revenues. The perception of success of the customer service interactions is dependent on employees "who can adjust themselves to the personality of the customer". Customer service is often practiced in a way that reflects the strategies and values of a firm. Good quality customer service is usually measured through customer retention.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">NICE Ltd.</span> Surveillence and data analytics company in Israel

NICE is an Israeli technology company specializing in customer relations management software, artificial intelligence, digital and workforce engagement management. The company serves various industries, such as financial services, telecommunications, healthcare, outsourcers, retail, media, travel, service providers, and utilities.

net2phone is a Cloud Communications provider offering cloud based telephony services to businesses worldwide. The company is a subsidiary of IDT Corporation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dialogue system</span>

A dialogue system, or conversational agent (CA), is a computer system intended to converse with a human. Dialogue systems employed one or more of text, speech, graphics, haptics, gestures, and other modes for communication on both the input and output channel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Virtual assistant</span> Software agent

A virtual assistant (VA) is a software agent that can perform a range of tasks or services for a user based on user input such as commands or questions, including verbal ones. Such technologies often incorporate chatbot capabilities to simulate human conversation, such as via online chat, to facilitate interaction with their users. The interaction may be via text, graphical interface, or voice - as some virtual assistants are able to interpret human speech and respond via synthesized voices.

LivePerson is a global technology company that develops conversational commerce and AI software.

Artificial Solutions is a multinational technology company that develops technology for conversational AI systems.

eGain Corporation is a cloud-based software company with its headquarters at Sunnyvale, California. eGain provides applications for customer service, knowledge management, and analytics, that businesses use to serve and sell to their customers. The company is listed on NASDAQ.

Uniphore is a conversational automation technology company. Uniphore sells software for conversational analytics, conversational assistants and conversational security. The company is headquartered in Palo Alto, California, with offices in the United States, Singapore, India, Japan, Spain, and Israel. Its products are used by up to 75,000 customer service agents during approximately 160 million interactions per month.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Haptik</span> Indian enterprise conversational AI platform

Haptik is an Indian enterprise conversational AI platform founded in August 2013, and acquired by Reliance Industries Limited in 2019. The company develops technology to enable enterprises to build conversational AI systems that allow users to converse with applications and electronic devices in free-format, natural language, using speech or text. The company has been accorded numerous accolades including the Frost & Sullivan Award, NASSCOM's Al Game Changer Award, and serves Fortune 500 brands globally in industries such as financial, insurance, healthcare, technology and communications.

A conversational user interface (CUI) is a user interface for computers that emulates a conversation with a real human. Historically, computers have relied on text-based user interfaces and graphical user interfaces (GUIs) to translate the user's desired action into commands the computer understands. While an effective mechanism of completing computing actions, there is a learning curve for the user associated with GUI. Instead, CUIs provide opportunity for the user to communicate with the computer in their natural language rather than in a syntax specific commands.

Conversational commerce is e-commerce done via various means of conversation and using technology such as: speech recognition, speaker recognition, natural language processing and artificial intelligence.

You.com is an AI Assistant that began as a personalization-focused search engine. While still offering web search capabilities, You.com has evolved to prioritize a chat-first AI Assistant.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yellow.ai</span>

Yellow.ai, formerly Yellow Messenger, is a multinational company headquartered in San Mateo, California focused on customer service automation. It was founded in 2016 and provides an AI platform for automating customer support experiences across chat and voice. The platform supports more than 135 languages across more than 35 channels.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ChatGPT</span> Chatbot developed by OpenAI

ChatGPT is a chatbot developed by OpenAI and launched on November 30, 2022. Based on large language models (LLMs), it enables users to refine and steer a conversation towards a desired length, format, style, level of detail, and language. Successive user prompts and replies are considered at each conversation stage as context.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aisera</span> Artificial intelligence company in Palo Alto, California

Aisera is a software company with a focus on artificial intelligence, enterprise GPT, and Generative AI solutions. The company's headquartered is in Palo Alto, California, and was founded in 2017.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Generative pre-trained transformer</span> Type of large language model

Generative pre-trained transformers (GPT) are a type of large language model (LLM) and a prominent framework for generative artificial intelligence. They are artificial neural networks that are used in natural language processing tasks. GPTs are based on the transformer architecture, pre-trained on large data sets of unlabelled text, and able to generate novel human-like content. As of 2023, most LLMs have these characteristics and are sometimes referred to broadly as GPTs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amazon Q</span>

Amazon Q is a chatbot developed by Amazon for enterprise use. Based on both Amazon Titan and GPT generative artificial intelligence, it was announced on November 28, 2023. It is able to help troubleshoot issues in cloud apps or group chats, or summarize documents. As of November 2023, it costs $20 per month. At launch, it was a part of the Amazon Web Services management console.

References

  1. ↑ "How AI brings customer service to the next level". TechCrunch.
  2. ↑ "Contact Center as a Service Market Size to Reach USD 17.19 Billion in 2030". Bloomberg. May 23, 2022.
  3. ↑ "Why purpose-built AI is key to improving customer experience". Business Insider. September 21, 2023.
  4. ↑ "The next frontier of customer engagement: AI-enabled customer service". McKinsey. March 27, 2023.
  5. ↑ Edelman, David C. (April 2022). "Customer Experience in the Age of AI". Harvard Business Review .
  6. ↑ Johnson, Khari (April 18, 2017). "Facebook Messenger hits 100,000 bots". VentureBeat.
  7. ↑ Mingas, Melanie (February 9, 2023). "How to use ChatGPT to elevate your CX function". CXNetwork.
  8. ↑ "How AI is supercharging the customer experience". Financial Times.
  9. ↑ Melland, Michelle (August 4, 2020). "Call Center vs. Contact Center – 17 Differences You Should Know About". NICE Systems.
  10. ↑ "An "Industry Breakthrough": NICE Launches Enlighten Journey Orchestration". CX Today. October 21, 2022.
  11. ↑ Savitz, Eric (February 22, 2024). "Nice Gets an AI Boost to Earnings and Its Call-Center Software". Barron's.
  12. ↑ "Customer Journey Orchestration: Features, Examples, & Predictions". CX Today. February 21, 2024.
  13. ↑ Lamont, Judith (March 13, 2024). "Personalization to support customer engagement and boost revenue". KM World.
  14. ↑ McGleenon, Brian (November 1, 2023). "The next generative AI success story could come from the call centre market". Yahoo!.
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