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The CX Broadcast

How to Create an Awesome Customer Experience with the Right Mix of AI and Human Touch

In this episode, Discuss the fascinating world of customer experience. let's delve into the role of AI in creating an awesome customer experience. How do you see AI enhancing customer interactions?

Maggie Faust
Maggie Faust Chief Customer Officer at Loris

 

TranscriptHow to Create an Awesome Customer Experience with the Right Mix of AI and Human Touch

Exploring the key elements that contribute to an exceptional customer experience

Niharika Sharma

Welcome everyone, to another episode of the CX broadcast. I'm Niharika, your host, and today we have a very special guest with us. Join me in welcoming Maggie Faust, the Chief Customer Officer at Loris AI.

Hi, Maggie. How are you doing today?

Maggie Faust

Hey, I'm great.  Thanks so much.

Niharika Sharma

Lovely. So, Maggie, I'm thrilled that you're here. And you know, we're here to discuss the fascinating world of customer experience. So customer experience happens to be a very captivating topic, right? And I'm very excited to learn from you from your expertise.

So let's start by defining what an awesome customer experience is and how would you describe it?

Maggie Faust

Yeah, absolutely.

I think it's a great question. I think you know at the core of an awesome customer experience is all about going above and beyond for your customer.

I think it's about creating those personalized, timely, relevant interactions with your customers to make them feel valued and satisfied.

You know, your goal, I think at the end of the day, is to really proactively think about your customers journey and how can you make that as soon as possible and maybe that's through some AI capabilities or it's through helping your agents guide the customers on whatever they are they need at the moment.

So I think there's a lot of different components that can really create an awesome experience.

But I think those organizations that focus on them and really put effort towards that are the ones that are going to see that customer loyalty and advocacy and ultimately growth as a result, right.

Discussing the various ways AI can enhance the customer experience, such as chatbots, personalization, and predictive analytics

Niharika Sharma

That's a wonderful description. Maggie, thank you for it.

Now let's delve into the role of AI creating an awesome customer experience. How do you see AI enhancing customer experience, customer interactions in now recent times and recent future?

Maggie Faust

Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think you know, there's so many ways that you can embed AI capabilities sort of in your customer journey and experience, you know, for a long time.

It was all about the chat bots. You're right about being able to take in what a customer is asking about and then automate responses back.

But right, right, really, now there's so many other use cases for the technology.

I think 1 area as well that the folks may or may not be aware of is the ability to actually take customer service, data, conversations, etc.

And parse out the contact drivers, the intents, the tags, sentiment, what the customers care about, what they're frustrated by in a way that really helps identify opportunities for improvement around that customer journey.

Whether that customer journey issues issues are maybe within your products or the website or how your customers engage with your brand or if those challenges or Issues are kind of within maybe the customer service team and how they're answering questions here at Laura's. We actually look at this all the time around the sentiment piece. We're actually trying to figure out helping our clients.

Determine where in that journey our customers are getting stuck and what we've found actually in our research is that sentiment is an example: about 70% of customer sentiment is actually geared towards the company not just the not the agent, about 30% is geared towards the agent.

And so teasing that out, you now have data sets that can help like explain and surface to your different stakeholders and the Co organization of how they can improve what they're doing to improve the customer experience. So that's just again it kind of 1.

Space as well from the AI side of the house on what can, on the value that AI can really provide. So you kind of have this concept of AI powered analytics that's really valuable.

You also have a variety of ways there's additional automation opportunities too.

So we've talked about chat bot deflecting and automating responses, but within a customer service organization. You can also automate additional tasks for your agents. You can automate a task for your QA team, your management team, etc.

So you can help them operate at the highest levels of their capability. So as I said, there's kind of a lot of different use cases that have been emerging in recent years and certainly in that last kind of six months with the introduction of generative AI. So it's an exciting time to be in the play in the space.

Examining the importance of maintaining a balance between AI automation and human touch in customer interactions

Niharika Sharma

That's fascinating, Maggie, but what about human touch? How do we strike the right balance between AI, automation, and even interaction in total?

Maggie Faust

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think you know. I think the reason additional a lot of these new use cases have come out is because the chatbot use case isn't isn't the North star, right I think a lot of us are consumers. We've interacted with chat bots.

We hate it, right?  You hate not being able to actually connect with a human when you have a problem, particularly when that problem is escalated.

So if I'm trying to get in touch with someone at my bank, or I'm trying to figure out how to get a refund or something related to my money, etc.

Those conversations, the chat bots not gonna suffice. I really want to connect. With someone and have them assure me that they're going to take care of, take care of me.

So here at Loris, at least, we think about this a lot because we don't want to just automate the world.

We don't think that going the way of the machines and robots is going to be what helps companies ultimately win and again build that advocacy and loyalty. So identifying really spots where you can tie in and bring the best of AI and humans to get their excuse me to really get to that.

Next stage of a performance is key. So going back to some of the examples that I had mentioned, you know that thing about kind of automating the quality assurance function as an example, you know we've hired quality teams to ensure that you know you're reviewing agent conversations and performance and helping the agents like coach the agents.

But what those QA teams do a lot is a lot of manual work around.

Collating the conversations, grading them, calibration, as well as thinking about, you know, doing manual analysis on CSAT scores.

What's going well, what's not? And imagine if instead of spending hours on what's really manual data aggregation, you can actually focus your time on partnering with the agent teams to improve their performance. So rather than spending 8 hours preparing for a QA session that is a 30 minute or an hour long session.

You maybe spend 30 minutes on that preparation and then you spend most of your time thinking about Okay, how do I actually help improve the performance of what I'm seeking.

And so that's just one example again of how the beauty of both can come together to really boost the performance, you know, of the team, the customer service team in that instance.

So that's again, I think it's all about how do you bring them together an effective way to elevate. The company and the service not just automated, you know all the human aspect away.

Sharing real-life examples of successful implementations of AI and Human Touch in customer experience, highlighting the benefits achieved

Niharika Sharma

Absolutely, and i think it's important to recognize a unique value of human interaction. I'm really impressed by the examples that you just mentioned, but can you think of any company, I think this will be very beneficial for our audience, for our listeners, can you think of any real-life examples or something that you have encountered in your personal life, where there is a blend of Al and you know, there's a blend of Al and Human Touch has worked really, really well for you and somebody in your network.

Maggie Faust

Yeah, definitely. I think about a few of our clients actually, you know, when we first started at Loris, we were an agent guidance solution. So an agent co-pilot, so to speak, really trying to help agents communicate effectively with an American consumer audience. And so, you know, I think about a telco telecommunications company that we're working with, you've seen they have three BPO's, they're all offshore. And those offshore teams can struggle sometimes in dealing with issues about someone's mobile phone or internet, et cetera. And they were struggling from a CSAT perspective, as well as an efficiency perspective. 

And we didn't come in and create a chatbot, deflect those questions. What we did is build a guidance solution for that company, for those agents, so they could better communicate with an American consumer audience. They can better empathize with them to recognize, hey, I'm so sorry this is happening to you. Let me work to help you fix it. and really help guide also on the solution as well. 

So we have different workflow guidance that we can pop in our product as well that can help, you know, based on what a customer is contacting you about, hey, my mobile phone isn't turning on, what have you, we can actually help guide the agent on step-by-step basis on how to troubleshoot. So at the end of the day, it's still the agent helping the customer and that customer feels connected to and helping with.

But there's Al behind it that's boosting the performance of that agent and really providing that co-pilot experience and feeling where I've got a buddy in Morris that's helping facilitate. And so,

We've seen success around that with our e-comm clients, Marketplace, Telco, etc. So it's been a great, | think, example of how you can marry the two together to, again, drive a great experience and interaction for the customer.

Discussing the potential challenges and limitations of AI and NLP in customer experience and strategies to address them

Niharika Sharma

Right,  Absolutely and I think it's great to learn that you're doing so much at Loris.Ai

Thank you so much for informing us about how things are shaping up at Loris.

And you know, these examples really highlight the power of combining AI and human touch and creating awesome experience customer blend. But what challenges should organizations be aware of when implementing this blend? What are your personal observations about this amalgamation of AI and human touch coming together?

Maggie Faust

Yeah. I think it's a really good question and really important to address. I think there's a couple elements to think about. When you're going, you're kind of starting this journey and the big one for me is around ensuring kind of a seamless transition between those AI and human touch points.

So certainly there is a place for a chat box as an example, but ideally the experience that you map out your customer journey, the customer shouldn't feel like I'm speaking to.

Robot and then speaking to a human, it should really be a continuous conversation sort of regardless what a whatever channel they're in. So this really I think it requires investing in a robust Omni channel solution and strategy that really ensures kind of the smooth handoff between the AI and humans within as certain channel whether that's chat, e-mail, etc and as well as across channels As well.

So that's kind of component one. I think component 2 is also whenever you're evaluating partners to work with, it's kind of important as well that those folks have a history of success.

So I think some folks that kind of dive into whoever is offering the Chief fast you know solution at the time but I think doing your due diligence around you know one does is solution this company's offering does it really solve my problem?

And then to have these guys seemed demonstrated success previously as well as a consideration to think about and then I think kind of finally if you want to make sure that you're addressing any kind of ethical considerations or concerns from a data privacy perspective. When you're talking with your different vendors and partners around this.

I think transparency around HIT, how AI is used, how they handle the data ensuring that the algorithm utilizer trained in a diverse and unbiased.

Data sets are really vital to building trust, so those are just a few considerations I think I would suggest to anyone planning on this and some challenges that I know folks have experienced in the past.

Exploring the ethical implications of using AI and NLP in customer experience and ensuring fairness, transparency, and privacy

Niharika Sharma 

Absolutely, Maggie and I think ethical conditions, ethical considerations and a seamless experience are a key to success. Speaking of success, what metrics and indicators should businesses focus on to measure the success of their AI and human touch integration?

How do you do it at Laureus and what are the practices around it for you?

Maggie Faust

Yeah, great question. I think you know when we think about at least within the agents, you know, the agent performance world, their key metrics that everyone cares about, their efficiency metrics and quality metrics.

So obviously from a quality perspective, you're looking at your net promoters for customer satisfaction, customer efforts for All really important as well as we're fine at least in our research as well as the efficiency capabilities too.

So response times, handle times, etc. Usually we find that when you are responsive to your customers and you are handling those contacts efficiently, they reward you with the higher CSAT and all of that So…

So they're actually quite, quite connected.

So those are some of the elements that I that we talked with our clients about a lot and I think about through the lens of what matters to the company that we're working with.

So certainly there's metrics internally here at Loris that we move you know consistently but we always want to tailor what we're doing so that we generate the results that the business we're working with cares about.

So I think that's an important you know touch whenever you're thinking about partnering with an AI vendor, are they listening to you, are they hearing your business?

Needs and are they addressing that you know, I also think about, you know from an AI perspective, from a chat bots perspective, you're also looking at deflection rates to usually when folks buy a chat bot.

They're looking to have that chat bot handle, you know, a certain number of tickets a day and a week in a year in an effort to deflect from their agent team.

So any of those simple interactions, ideally that chat bot you know can pick up a handle.

So I think that's a key element.

You know, deflection rates as well as escalation rates for the chat bot.

How often do the agents or excuse me, the customers say, no, no, I want to talk to an agent, you know that's an important element and a success indicator or certainly KPI for this chat bot.

So those are some of the key elements I would say, but of course always kind of querying your customers and asking them for feedback and what's working and what's not is, is it going to I think a key component that's going to help you optimize, you know, your customer experience over time?

Discussing emerging trends in AI and NLP that will impact customer experience and the role they will play in shaping the future

Niharika Sharma

Absolutely. Thank you for enlightening us with that. I think these metrics provide a well-rounded view of how you or one should plan on shaping up their customer experience strategies. So completely aligned to it.

So yeah, Maggie, we've spoken about NLP, machine learning and AI.

So there's of course it's the hot topic of the Tinseltown, but what do you think would be the emerging trends in AI and NLP that will shape the future of customer experience?

Maggie Faust

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, I think there's just so many exciting possibilities in this kind of part of the world.

You know, we're seeing advancements around investment from a voice based AI assistance capability and LP understanding, cinnamon analysis, customer frustration detection, all kinds of different elements here.

And I think these technologies can really enable more natural and impactful interaction between the customer and the brands, voice assistance in particular.

I think we are becoming more context aware and came incapable of handling those complex requests or complex issues that are coming across.

So when you think about Ivr's today versus 10 years ago, you know you're actually some you're you think you're actually speaking to you know which is really impressive and exciting.

The other thing I was thinking about as well is the analytics piece and up being powered analytics where you can pick up on the contact drivers, sentiment, again customer frustration.

So whenever a customer complaints or they want to speak to a manager, they are going to report you to the Better Business Bureau.

You know all these signals can actually be captured and structured into a report and analytics for you to review and helps again surface you know some of those gotcha issues that maybe you would have missed because that customer might not have filled out a CSAT survey as an example.

And so you know all this really provides a huge opportunity around one understanding where in your customer experience their problems and then providing solutions that can really as I said boost that kind of engagement with your, with your customers.

So I think we're witnessing increased integration of AI across kind of all touch points, you know, from those voice assistance to smart devices, etc. So the future is certainly full of promise.

Providing actionable advice and steps for businesses looking to implement AI and NLP solutions for customer experience enhancement

Niharika Sharma

Absolutely. The future is right and the potential for customer experience is limited.

Before we wrap up, can you share some practical implementation advice for businesses looking to enhance their customer experience with AI and of course integration of human touch in it?

Maggie Faust

Yeah, definitely.

I think you know, one of the key components and I mentioned a little bit earlier, is around taking the time to define what you want your customer experience to be, How do you want your customers to enact and engage with your brand?

And then as you map that out, you start seeing opportunities for AI augmentation or automation that you may then want to bake in. But without having that kind of end to end map, you're going to be sort of plugging holes or maybe buying the new shiny thing without seeing it all come together and in a comprehensive way.

So that wrote that that journey mapping is actually a road map I think for integrating you know the best, best results possible out there. I also think you know we talked a little bit as well about partnering with vendors that have a proven track record. I think that's important too.

And then also investing in training with your support teams. I think a lot of folks in the customer service and support world, CAI is threatening their jobs and it shouldn't be that way. You should think of it as almost kind of a new coworker, right.

So and again as I think as management and leaders you need to recognize there is that trepidation and concern and angst with that team, acknowledge it and think about change management approaches to help them not feel threatened by the new technology that's coming in, but thinking about how do we embed this in a sophisticated and smart way.

And again, the goal ultimately being to elevate that agent team, it's not to replace, but it's to bring together the best of those words again to drive the best business outcomes possible and the best engagement and experience for your customers.

So I think it gets to say kind of having a change management program around this, talking openly with your team about what the plans are and then again training the team on how these elements can come together in a positive way are all kind of key components I would say, when you think about implementation of these kind of technologies.

Niharika Sharma

Absolutely And I think this is the key to creating meaningful corrections with their customer customers. And then of course it'll leave a lasting impression. Maggie, your practical advice is invaluable for businesses embarking on this journey.

Thank you so much for sharing your insights and experience with us today.

That's been a wonderful conversation and I, myself, am taking a lot in terms of learning, in terms of how things are shaping up in the customer experience world and.

How the synergy between AI and Human touch is creating the so-called autumn experience, customer experience that we just happen to talk about.

Maggie Faust

Yeah, no, thank you.

I mean, I always love talking about this.

It was definitely a pleasure to hash through this with you today.

And I really know, you know, this conversation inspires businesses to recognize the power of AI, the positive impact that it can really have when bringing it together with the team and the human team that's on the ground.

I think it can unlock a really lovely and delightful customer experience, again, driving that advocacy and loyalty, which is what we're all, you know, striving for.

So, here's creating remarkable experiences for our customers and driving that loyalty we're looking for, definitely.

Niharika Sharma

Absolutely. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Maggie, it was a pleasure having this conversation with you and for all our learning listeners, I think it is going to be a very insightful discussion.

So, yeah, thank you so much.