Putting AI to work for Customer Experience (CX) and sales in 2022

As we enter a new year, it’s natural for customer experience (CX), sales, and customer service leaders to ask: What went well? What didn’t? And where can we improve? If you’re the “futurist” type, you might even ask: should I adopt AI to improve business results next year?

Copyright: venturebeat.com – “Putting AI to work for CX and sales in 2022”

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The problem with AI today is that it’s hard to discern between fact and fiction. In CX, we see companies using AI to augment human interactions, increase customer satisfaction, and respond to customer service issues faster — with minimal or zero need for a live customer service agent. In sales, managers, and reps tout AI as the new way to forecast sales, boost sales engagement to drive bottom-line results and orchestrate live calls with customers. But, while it sounds forward-looking, you can’t throw AI at just any problem.

Take containment — a long-heralded and oft-misused metric — as a prime example of where AI can go wrong. High containment rates are often deemed good because it means that automated systems — think AI chatbots — resolve customer issues without the need for human interaction. This means the company saves on resources.

But keeping customers away from reps is not always good for the customer, nor for add-on sales. If the AI chatbot isn’t properly designed or trained it can frustrate callers. Can a well-designed system work in these situations? Yes. But it has to be done very carefully. To be clear, it’s not all bad.

Here are some examples where AI is showing promise.

Boosting sales & revenue with AI

Companies have realized AI has tangible and practical applications in sales and, if used correctly, can drive gains on the bottom line. The analyst community agrees. Gartner research predicts that 70% of customer experiences will involve some kind of machine-learning component in the next three years.

Source: SwissCognitive