Consumer demand has sky-rocketed over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many businesses have adapted their strategies to meet these exceptional demands, but for many, they are simply falling behind.
In order to focus on delivering exceptional CX throughout one of the most challenging periods in modern history, a wave of organisations have installed new working from home systems. But while this injected some much-needed order into businesses, it meant a vital aspect of this process was largely ignored; customer interaction data.
In an exclusive interview with Sharon Einstein, Vice President and General Manager – Customer Engagement Analytics at NICE, CX Today explores the link between higher call volumes providing a wealth of access to customer data, and how leveraging it should be key to any business recovery plan.
“With fewer agents in the office and many businesses working feverishly to install new work-from-home systems, some customers were left waiting longer for replies from companies than they expected, Einstein begins.
“However, as businesses adjusted to the new climate, it became clear that the higher volume of online interactions provided access to a wealth of untapped customer interaction data. This data is proving to be a major asset for companies looking to better understand their customers and the customer journey and leverage it to improve service experiences.”
Einstein goes onto explain that 2021 will see organisations increasingly leveraging advanced analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) to incorporate extreme customer experience (CX) agility into the fabric of their business by gaining real-time insights into shifting customer needs.
She adds: “This will enable the organisation to improve responses to these needs in real-time, and to ultimately meet and exceed those needs. This agility will have to be incorporated at all levels of a business through advanced AI-enabled analytics – from decision-makers through to the contact centre agents speaking with customers.”
Analytics Makes for Improved Decision-making
“In 2021, organisations will accelerate adoption of a much more streamlined, agile approach to understanding customer interaction data which will help them keep pace with rapidly changing customer and market needs, Einstein says.
“Instead of tapping analytics to find a blanket solution for all, the use of AI-enabled analytics at every level of an organisation will make it possible for the first time to create hyper-personalised customer experiences.”
We all know that AI makes customer data easier to manage as live agents simply do not have the ability to plough through such a vast amount of data. But as new operational methods have cemented themselves during the pandemic, can the same be said for advances in AI?
Einstein explains: “Advanced AI-based analytics provides accurate, easy to understand, prescriptive metrics that enable every role to take informed and measurable data-driven actions in real-time. Equally, many businesses that take pride in investing in their customer services may not have access to large quantities of customer data like some of their larger competitors. Pre-built, out-of-the-box AI models that do not require expertise or large amounts of data to train automated intelligence are emerging to help organisations easily harness their data and drive hyper-personalised experiences.
“The true potential of analytics and AI stretches further than just informing decisions made at the top. This technology will be used to develop new ways to solve customers’ problems and enable informed decision-making from the ground up. While traditionally challenging, detecting if a customer is likely to make a complaint, acting suspiciously, or may be about to leave the business in real-time is fast becoming a reality with AI-based analytics. What’s more, evaluating customer communication styles or preferences has relied heavily on the intuition of the contact centre agent. To pin down such behaviours and trends, AI and analytics are poised to become part of the standard approach used by customer-centric businesses in 2021.”
