COVID-19 has disrupted everyday life, but it hasn’t stifled the need for innovation. Artificial intelligence tools are creating true differentiation and customer journey management for brands in the growing digital space. Even amidst economic downturn, investments in AI may still reach over €20 billion in Europe said EU commissioner Margrethe Vestager at European Parliament’s new AI committee.
For legacy brands seeking to grow in the digital world it’s critical that they understand how the right kind of automation and AI can drive effortless experiences. This falls under what we call intelligent automation: a combination of automation through smart bots, assistive agent technologies and journey management that accelerates growth and outcomes that matter to customers and employees.
In a growing digital landscape here is a preview of how intelligent automation can supercharge digital initiatives.
1: Putting self-service at the forefront
Customers want resolutions, not process. Deploying comprehensive and sophisticated automation technology can enable self-service where it makes the most sense at points on the customer journey, providing immediate (and preferred) answers, removing effort and reducing cost to serve.
2: Moving from reactive to proactive
Once a customer contacts your brand for help or service, you have missed an opportunity to proactively anticipate their needs and take preventive steps to reduce friction in their experience and cost to the enterprise. The ability for intelligent automation to serve relevant suggestions and digest data is an incredibly important step for predicting issues before they even arrive at an agent’s doorstep.
3: Adapting the employee experience for the digital age
Today’s customer service workforce is now a mix of remote and brick-and-mortar roles. They can leverage assisted-automation as digital coworkers to free them up to focus on a great experience on the phone or by email, chat, or messaging. Augmenting your employees with intelligent automation capabilities gives them a co-pilot to let them work at their best.
4: Making operations frictionless
A huge challenge to creating a seamless experience for customers is the numerous systems and databases that most organisations need to work through to complete a customer’s journey. A journey orchestration layer is the foundation for ensuring that underlying complexity doesn’t hinder the customer and employee experience. It also can drive massive cost reduction by creating “one office” versus a split front and back office.
Drive forward
Robotics, AI and Omnichannel solutions are very tactical. They must be intelligently combined with workflow management systems and customer understanding to truly drive a differentiated and transformational experience. But today, those organisations that are not digitally native do have a path forward that is bite size and achievable.
