Artificial Intelligence (AI) has taken customer experience (CX) by storm, proving the world’s fascination is not just a trend. In fact, the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Artificial Intelligence Spending Guide anticipates global spending on AI will increase by 27 percent compared with 2022.
As businesses restructure CX strategies for a major transformation, generative AI is at the forefront of these blueprints. From banking and finance to healthcare and customer service, generative AI is creating ripples across CX strategies. ChatGPT, Bard, Claude, Synthesia, and Coherent Generate are some of the latest generative AI solutions that help with the optimization of various CX tasks. Once onboarded, generative AI has a strong impact, improving a business’s CX and boosting the brand’s reputation.
While generative AI offers incredible capabilities, businesses must understand how to effectively onboard these solutions. If they aim to utilize AI successfully, there is a strong investment and meticulous journey ahead to prevent detrimental mistakes. Onboarding new AI tools – especially generative AI – requires the right balance of automation and human touch for supervision that ultimately supports an excellent CX.
Research consumer expectations
The consumer is always right – especially when it comes to expectations. Today, the best experience that consumers have with one brand quickly becomes the de facto new expectation for experiences with every brand. For example, each time Netflix personalizes the selection of content and makes the experience a little easier, or Amazon personalizes product recommendations to make shopping a little quicker, the bar on customer expectations across the board rises. When onboarding new tools, generative AI can make consumers’ experiences greater, but what expectations must you meet? Before truly diving into the onboarding process, it’s important to reflect on your target audience’s needs to meet and exceed them appropriately.
Take baby steps
While onboarding AI, your business will undergo major reconstruction that can highlight vulnerabilities. If the process is rushed, you may encounter damaging mistakes. The first step is to assess your current resources and how generative AI can improve your processes. Consider your primary CX design and pilot each generative AI initiative around it to drive smart automation transformation through many smaller step changes and successes. Collaboration and communication across teams is also key. For example, connecting with HR and IT early in the process will better support implementation, budget consideration and timelines.
Build on existing resources
When evaluating your onboarding process and objectives, it is important to call out opportunities that augment your frontline resources to train the AI. Building on existing resources will not only provide results faster but also lighten the cognitive load on your valuable employees. By leveraging the knowledge and expertise of the existing agent knowledge, contact centers can create a synergy that enhances both human and AI capabilities.
Defend against your pain points
As previously discussed, the process to onboard new strategies and AI capabilities can highlight vulnerabilities. Take your primary pain points into consideration from the start, allowing you to pilot each targeted generative AI initiative around them. When your less powerful lines of defense receive more support, you will see faster results and gain a better understanding of how AI impacts your current processes.
Choose the right partner
During periods of transition, teams require the right support systems to effectively make changes with little to no mistakes. This is imperative if you do not have an experienced team in-house with the bandwidth to drive sustained development and change over time. The correct partner will offer support and experience that ensures you achieve the desired results. With an ever-growing number of vendors in the world, it is important to evaluate whether or not they have the right generative AI talent, processes development expertise and technology partner ecosystem. By selecting the right partner, organizations are better equipped to integrate generative AI into their everyday operations.
As your team begins to build an excellent CX, embarking on the journey of generative AI requires a strategic and gradual approach. It will take some time and resources, but leaders who follow these considerations alongside a strong CX partner can stay ahead of the curve.
It’s truly an exciting time for CX, with generative AI and new technology advancements just along the horizon. As we continue to uncover news ways to utilize these tools, businesses can continue to pave the way for long-term success and remarkable brand reputations.