The Impact of Generative AI on Customer Experience Will Throw Up Interesting Possibilities

I use Spa services regularly. One of the high-end spas offers steep discounts on a few services throughout the year. The offers are to the tune of 50% off on certain services.

I visit their website regularly to look out for these offers and avail some of those services.

When I visited their website, the chat window popped up and threw some standard questions. Can you tell me your name, phone number, and city? It asked these questions one after the other.

Once I provided these details, the next question it asked was, what are you looking for?

Then I keyed in that I was looking for ongoing offers. It listed the offers that are available in my city, and I chose one of them. Once I chose the service, it allowed me to book the slots at my preferred facility in the city.

This was simple, and I liked using it.

So, I tried to be clever the second time I visited. When it asked for my name, I keyed in all the details, including my name, phone number, city, and what I was looking for.

I thought that this was going to make things easy.

Surprisingly, it said it didn’t understand the answer and asked me again for my name. So, I went through the process the way I did the first time.

Basically, they had a rule-based engine with little intelligence and understanding of context. 

This was a few years ago.

Today, AI engines, especially Generative AI platforms, have changed the game forever.

The Impact of Generative AI

The biggest question in people’s minds is, can I trust the AI engine completely?

Even the die-hard fans of AI will not want to say yes to this question. It would never be 100%, but tending toward it.

When I was a student, there was a professor who was talking about security platforms. He said some platforms can help you achieve 99% security.

When I questioned, why not 100%?

His response was philosophical.

He said if something offers 100% security, then there won’t be a need for human beings.

This answer resonated so very well with me. I am sure that this would be the case with AI as well.

However, AI can enrich the customer experience, making customers and organizations happier.

Generative AI has gained currency lately, resulting from core technologies like deep neural networks and large language models that solution providers have fine-tuned for decades.

Traditional chatbots and virtual assistants varied in quality and were limited in their capabilities and ability to converse naturally with human users, like the example I cited above. Generative AI tools can now quickly and more accurately interpret prompts to deliver users a relevant, actionable answer.

Fun fact:  A random search on LinkedIn for the keywords “Prompt Engineer” threw up 190K+ professionals who have described that in their profiles.

Besides, AI has fundamentally changed the way we interact with unstructured data. It can unlock new opportunities for enterprises with its ability to digest data, detect trends, and categorize information quickly.

What Would Be the Impact of Generative AI on Customer Experience?

Around 60% of customer requests are transactional, and another 25% are contextual. Chatbots and virtual assistants aren’t able to address contextual queries. AI models can address these as they understand intent and context, allowing for more human-like conversations.

Besides, AI models can leverage structured and unstructured data to provide a human-like experience that respects the customer’s time.

AI models can play the support function role to perfection for human agents. For instance, these models can provide automated call summaries and quick access to the knowledge base and other relevant information to provide quick resolutions.

Imagine mapping the customer journey using an AI model. You can quickly understand the customers’ pain points, resulting in resolutions and opportunities.

However, you must provide the AI models with the right data and context. Customer Experience leaders must either build or invest in technology specific to the goal.

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Generative AI has opened Pandora’s box. In a few months from now, there will be regulations on data privacy, copyright infringements, and the way to roll out AI.

Around 80% of the data that the customer experience functions use would be specific to the business, and it shouldn’t result in a lot of privacy issues. However, you must be conscious that you will have to comply with the regulations.

The customer experience training will involve proper ways to prompt the AI models to get the best and most relevant outcomes specific to their brand or business.

I am excited and keeping my fingers crossed about the opportunities in front of us.

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