AI is not the solution to customer experience in Australia… yet

Despite the hype around AI, automation and digital customer experience, Australians are not ready to give up on person-to-person interactions. not yet anyway.

Research from Qualtrics and SAP’s Center for Experience Management shows that 45% of Australians prefer service interactions with a real person, while 21% prefer digital platforms.

In addition, only 29% of consumers are looking for more services and interactions through mobile apps, and 26% are looking for a “seamless” experience across all digital touchpoints.

However, consumers would like to see the companies work to improve the assistance of customer service representatives. This goes beyond a desire for easy-to-use mobile apps, access to more payment options, and even service speed and delivery.

In short, consumers still respect more traditional ways of doing business. They just want to see organizations get better.

Experience is more important than ever to retain customers

According to another research body CPM, a third of Australians have stopped buying from a company after a bad customer experience. More than two-thirds of consumers believe that companies give no, little or moderate importance to providing excellent customer service. This was true before and after the onset of Covid-19 as well.

Interestingly, most Australians have very clear ideas about what good customer service is. According to 75% of people in the CPM study, it is a matter of being able to access the right information, having consistent information across both digital and human interactions, and having a knowledgeable workforce.

In theory, there should be technical solutions to deliver this. It can be delivered with a desynchronized and centralized data environment that allows relevant people in each line of business to access customer data when they need it. This should then be supported by AI-powered insights, allowing an organization to engage with its customers deeply and intelligently.

However, research shows that, globally, most customers believe their feedback goes to the wrong person. This means that when a customer reaches out to a company there is not enough information about their intent, and suggests that the data environment or their application still has some way to go.

It’s not helped by a skills shortage and a high rate of staff churn. Organizations are clearly struggling to provide a consistent and appropriately personalized user experience, and customers do not trust AI’s ability to provide this without human oversight.

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“Delivering programs, products and services with a customer-first mindset is more important than ever, and a critical part of that is ensuring customers have the experiences they want, while frontline employees can quickly and easily understand and are enabled with the tools and systems to take over. “Acting on what matters most to customers,” said Lara Truelove, author of “The Customer Experience Age: Australia and Program Leader for the Center for Experience Management.”

Getting back to basics and leveraging technology to improve customer experience

For all the interest in AI chatbots and “self-service”, poor customer service costs Australia more than $100 billion a year. There is no doubt that AI and automation will continue to grow and play a more important role in driving interactions with customers.

However, organizations must be wary of trying to jump-start the transformational phases in between. Right now, many Australian organizations are not providing the expected level of customer service, and consumers are willing to take their business elsewhere in the meantime.

For any organization that wants to appeal to demographics beyond the early adopters of technology, using technology to enhance traditional customer service approaches should still be a priority.

provide quick response

Every organization is experimenting with chatbots to provide the first interaction with the customer – and this is a great way to handle the demand. However, when customer needs mean that the chatbot will be pushed forward, the main thing will be the speed of the response. It is also important to ensure that the chatbot and prior interactions with the customer are centralized to prevent the customer from experiencing repetition in their interactions with the business.

having an effective communication tone

Adopting the tone of communication means understanding how customers are talking about your business and, in general, how it communicates. Keeping a finger on the pulse here means creating an effective strategy for identifying, categorizing and analyzing unstructured data coming in from social media, and then disseminating the information to everyone who interacts with customers within the organization.

Creating a seamless omnichannel experience

Although Qualtrics research may show that only 26% of Australians are looking for “seamless” interactions with brands across all digital channels, they will certainly notice if things go wrong. Providing a ubiquitous experience means having centralized sources of data on customers, so no matter how someone is interacting with that customer, that customer’s knowledge is kept updated and consistent.

Offering personalized and proactive contact

Customers who feel like they are just a number to a company and must continue to chase the company for information or updates will report a poor customer experience. Having automated systems in place that help actively manage customer needs is key to making the customer feel as though they are being personally taken care of.