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- Today's communication with businesses are powered by emerging technologies and supported by humans.
- NICE Enlighten, a purpose-built AI for customer experience, has operations, agents, and customers covered across the end-to-end customer journey
- AI chatbots that understand and respond to customer emotions can be used to personalize the customer experience and provide expedited resolutions.
How customers talk with businesses has changed dramatically. Ten years ago, customers used to call companies on 800 numbers, but now they use chatbots or social media to get the help they need. Where the interactions of the past were static, today's are digital — powered by emerging technologies and supported by humans.
"Interactions used to be dictated by the channels and the technology of the company, rather than the preferences of the customer," said Elizabeth Tobey, NICE head of marketing, Digital & AI. "What we've seen in the last decade is the proliferation of different channels, and the ability to ask questions on demand, as the customer needs, and get those answers back in real-time."
Conversation as a means of delivering exceptional customer experience (CX) has reached a tipping point in today's modern business landscape. According to the NICE 2022 Digital-First Customer Experience Report, 81% of consumers expect more self-service options, but only 40% of businesses think they have enough. And while 53% of businesses believe their customers are very satisfied with their self-service offerings, only 15% of consumers agree.
This mismatch between consumer expectations and business capabilities is a significant opportunity for generative AI to improve the customer experience. "Every touchpoint of a company is part of the company," Tobey said.
The role of AI in customer conversations
Conversational, generative AI has the unique ability to personalize a customer's experience with a brand. "The core of an interaction is to be heard, listened to, and understood," Tobey said. "Conversational AI has the ability to understand not just the surface-level words that are being said, but the intent underneath." It can understand a customer's words and map them to historical data and conversations. This gives it a deeper understanding of their needs and helps it to get to the right solution.
Facilitating a seamless online and offline interaction can be achieved with AI, but convincing consumers that this is the most efficient way to reach a solution will take a massive shift in perception of AI. Despite this, generative AI continues to prove its ability to help facilitate an enhanced customer experience by bridging offline and online interactions.
So, what does this look like when implemented in real-life customer scenarios? That's where NICE Enlighten, its purpose-built AI for CX, comes in.
NICE Enlighten has your operations, your agents, and your customers covered across the end-to-end customer journey. For example, Enlighten Autopilot is designed to cater to the needs of consumers, using friendly, informed, AI-driven conversations to act as the company's most trusted and valued virtual service employee. Autopilot creates customized digital experiences when and where consumers need them. This new conversational AI approach uses trusted company knowledge to align every response with brand and business goals when consumers engage with self-service or AI-designed virtual agents.
Consumers can benefit from smarter self-service options that use AI technology to provide fully conversational responses that understand context and intent, while customer service representatives can use AI as their copilot, taking over in such instances where service can be automated. If someone is having a problem on vacation, for example, they can go to the company's website or mobile app, start a conversation, and get the answer or resolution they need. Whether that's a question, upgrade, or a problem with the digital autopilot option, this can be escalated to a human interaction supplemented by AI.
Since AI can access all the information regarding the interaction and the customer's history, NICE Enlighten can act as a digital assistant and offer answers supported by generative AI, creating a streamlined and personalized customer experience.
"We want to use things that are trained on customer interactions relevant to the experience and the moment at hand with the company at hand and actually the company's brand language brand constitution, knowledge base to inform that AI — that is the heart of what we're doing with NICE Enlighten," said Tobey.
The future of conversational customer experience
Although AI has the potential to revolutionize the customer experience, it is not without its drawbacks. "There's a lot of skepticism and fear," Tobey said. "You need to make sure that your AI does not cause more problems, whether that's legally or even the end result of making customers more satisfied and allowing them to reach their goals more effectively." Businesses need to be transparent about their use of AI and make sure that their AI systems are aligned with their values. Additionally, they need to educate their customers about how AI works and how their data is being used.
One way to address the drawbacks of AI is to use it to develop chatbots that can understand and respond to customer emotions. These chatbots can be used to personalize the customer experience and provide expedited resolutions to customer problems. This can lead to higher engagement, strengthened CX delivery, and greater customer loyalty overall.
Conversational CX signals a new frontier of customer service technology. Generative AI's role in this transformation is undeniable, as the market demands agility, personalization, and efficiency in each customer touchpoint. Businesses that invest in this technology reap the benefits of being a customer-first and technologically adept entity while better aligning themselves with their brand values.
Find out more about NICE's AI-powered solutions.
This article was created by Insider Studios with NICE.