“Customer service is going to become more and more customer-friendly. It becomes more of a helping hand instead of an obstacle that you don't want to be in as a customer. The influence of Artificial Intelligence will be enormous.” Peter Woods, Marketing and Decisioning specialist, adjusts this pegasystems. An interview at Pegaworld in Las Vegas.

How can AI provide more customer-friendliness?

“Customers are demanding, have usually already done some research online, then contact an organization with an urgent request for help. The customer service representative wants to provide quick help and, when it comes down to it, notices that a complete customer picture is lacking. In many cases, only the customer information of that moment is visible. The customer is left in despair, waiting for a moment of empathy.”

“With AI, the customer advisor succeeds in increasing empathy. AI is like the customer advisor's buddy, functions as the company's memory, knows what interactions have taken place and knows what the customer needs. As a result, the advisor can proactively help the customer, he does not have to wait for his call and thus knows how to offer the service that makes customers happy.”

Are chatbots then also a model of customer friendliness?

“I see chatbots as non-human interaction. The big problem with them is that they are silos, not based on the complete customer view. There is intelligence in it, which purely captures the need of the moment. While the context of the customer is much more valuable to anticipate and add value. Chatbots are therefore most valuable if they can use AI to translate the complete context of the customer into the next best action for the customer.”

What do you advise organizations to do that want to be able to optimally answer acute requests for help?

“It is important that you have determined which outcomes you want to achieve for the customer. What things do you want to be able to deliver quickly? Reason from the customer's point of view. Then you find out that you have to put together teams with cross-skills, that you have to let the business and IT work together. Larger organizations have already made extensive use of this. That is the big difference with traditional thinking. You will then see the desired delivery to the customer as a process.”

Robotics is an indispensable element in modern customer service?

"Indeed. The question is not whether it should be used, but how it should be used. Because employees will have more opportunities to offer added value in a conversation. Robotics can provide insight in all kinds of areas: which application we use, how often we use it and how often we have to click to get where we want to be.”

“In this way you gain insight into the actual use of dashboards and you can find out where you can make things easier for the customer advisor. For example with a Start My Day robot, a personal desktop robot that prepares the necessary information for you every day. Or suppose a customer has a request. The robot analyzes this, gives advice and thus takes work off your hands and minimizes errors.”

Has the purpose of customer service changed over the years?

“Years ago we shouted in unison: service is sales. Now we say: service should be synonymous with real conversation. The story behind the story matters, customers want a warm contact moment. Customer services function as highly efficient organizations, closely monitor the follow-up of processes, AHT, First Time Fix and the maximum learning time of training courses.”

“Customers also experience this sharpness and fixation on efficiency, after which they drop out. Customer services would do well to put the customer in contact with the specialized advisor who is looking for a real connection with the customer on the basis of skilled-based routing. The result is more recommendations, driven by technology.”

How do you ideally make that real connection?

“By focusing on the next best moment, which is what Pegasystems trademarks on the market. A requirement is that as a customer advisor you have more knowledge of the customer's journey. With AI you have that knowledge. Then you know where the customer is in his journey, where he is going and how you can advise him in the right way at the right time.”

“That predictive information was never available before. You can now predict all kinds of things that a customer in his situation, in his customer journey, will experience through deep learning. That enables truly personalized, proactive service.”

It has often been said: customer service is the responsibility of the entire organization, not a department.

“I am also from that school. Old silos in organizations, with Marketing, Sales and Service departments, will disappear. This division into silos only creates problems for the customer experience. The use of AI is precisely aimed at improving that customer experience, functioning as a learning mechanism. I notice in the field that organizations are ready to work on it.”

“The question is no longer whether they will use AI, but how they can set it up as quickly as possible. Because loyalty and NPS are the key KPIs. The more you can serve customers at the right time, the more they buy from you and the higher the loyalty.”

 

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Customer Experience, Technology pegasystems