Use cases, tips, and analysis on AI in CX
By Karl O’Connor, Head of Business Development, Inisoft; Simone Hutchinson, Technical Author, Inisoft
Tangible benefits of AI in CX
“We’re beginning to see brands pushing past proof of concept and showcasing the tangible business value it can deliver. It’s possible now to draw connections between AI and customer experience ROI.” Simon Hall, Industry Analyst CCW Europe Digital [1]
If you’ve been following the use of AI for customer service then you will know that a watershed moment has been reached. Investment in CX-focused AI is no longer a wish list pipedream but has been achieved by more than half of businesses operating in customer management in Europe. Those early adopters are now demonstrating the results of their investment. Their corporate websites now display success stories of their innovations in AI.
“Just over half of all respondents (54%) have already invested in CX-focused AI technology and many others are well on their way – 30% plan to deploy a new AI tool within the next six months; 24% plan to do so within 12 months; and 28% plan to do so within two years. Just 5% have no plans to invest at all.” [1]
But the complexities of integrating this new technology still pose a challenge to businesses who have either not yet adopted AI or who are in the early stages of seeing its effects play out. Their cautious hesitation to dive into AI is merited. The potential risks are significant. What’s needed is a clear understanding of the risks and practical advice from those who have data to share.
At the recent CCW Digital Europe event in Amsterdam, Simon Hall delivered a paper on AI in the customer experience landscape. Here, we will be sharing some of the key points Simon reports in his analysis, and we’ll go a step further too.
We will also share some tips from Inisoft’s experience with designing and delivering AI solutions. At Inisoft, we implemented generative AI features into our contact centre desktop, Syntelate XA, in 2023 and in our SaaS application for contact centres, Kapture, earlier this year.
First, let’s look at some of the advice we can gain from Simon Hall.
AI in CX – a talk at CCW Europe 2024
Simon Hall’s analysis draws from a survey conducted by CCW Europe of more than 100 thought leaders from the CCW Europe community. The respondents operate in the fields of customer care, support services, customer operations, customer insights, product management, among others. They work in companies of all sizes and from sectors including financial services, healthcare and pharmaceuticals, hospitality and travel, retail, automotive, telecommunication, energy, and government and NGO services.
The key points in the paper are:
- Boardroom priorities: Business leaders recognise the growing urgency to strategically implement AI for enhanced customer experiences and for competitive advantage.
- The readiness factor: Business leaders need to establish a clear AI vision and ensure collaboration among departments, while addressing the need for skilled personnel and fostering a culture of psychological safety.
- Practical steps to take: Prioritise customer needs, ensure data quality, adhere to compliance standards, and establish continuous monitoring.
You can read the full paper (see Sources below) to see more detail about those practical steps.
Below, we discuss real use cases. At Inisoft, we’re continuously refining our AI strategy, drawing on the results of our implementations for our clients. We don’t see AI as a replacement for people but rather as a tool to enhance the capabilities of individuals, such as our sentiment analysis and rewriter features for Syntelate XA and Insights reports for Kapture. The AI enhancements we’ve developed aim to help the users of our software complete their work to a higher standard, ultimately supporting the business to achieve better outcomes for its customers. Here are some tips we can share based on our experience.
Inisoft’s experience with AI in CX
Adding AI to a closed technology ecosystem
For businesses who must remain committed to using existing software systems, introducing AI can seem too difficult. What suits this type of challenge is a bitesize approach. We developed a standalone AI-powered SaaS app to be used in tandem with the existing applications at a multinational utilities supplier. Our solution transformed manual and disjointed workflows within one domain of their operations into faster, automated processes.
Tip
- Embrace small steps towards AI solutions. Sometimes an AI solution can only form a small part of a business’s technology ecosystem, usually because they have to accommodate contractual obligations or legacy systems.
- With a small AI solution, you can implement improvements more nimbly and therefore see (and learn from) results faster.
Security and reliability
We chose to develop our AI solutions using Azure OpenAI for two reasons: tried and tested (by us, for our solutions) Azure cloud infrastructure, and Azure OpenAI’s security and privacy policies. You can learn about those in detail at Data, privacy, and security for Azure OpenAI Service.
Tips
- Research and analyse the security policies of the AI services you are interested in implementing.
- Be aware that some updates made by the AI service provider can result in unanticipated changes in the generated output, potentially disrupting the user and customer experience you’ve designed.
- Strategically manage your AI model updates and conduct smoke testing.
Cleaning data
In a recent SaaS project featuring our AI-powered reporting tool, we worked with the client’s MI team to define their requirements so we could prepare their data for use with our software’s AI API. The preparation involved querying the database and transforming the resulting data into a suitable format. The last step was to anonymise the data to remove any personally identifiable information. Only then would we permit the data be passed to our software’s API for connecting with the Azure OpenAI API.
Tip
Analyse your client’s business requirements for AI to enable you to identify the data to query, transform, and anonymise before passing it to your AI API.
Advice for businesses new to AI
Industry analysts are reporting that over 50% of customer management businesses have invested in CX-focused AI which marks a major turning point in the AI space. From here on, we’ll see the rest catch up while we continue to observe the successes and mistakes of those early adopters. We can all learn from their examples. Returns on investment are now demonstrable, and best practices are bedding in.
If you’re at the beginning of your AI-adoption journey, consider this advice from Simon Hall:
“Start by identifying customer needs:
- What are the strategic goals that the CX team is working to accomplish? Are there opportunities to meet them in less time by introducing AI?
- In which areas of the team are resources sparse? How could AI supplement the need?
- Where does friction surface in the customer journey? What are the most common pain points, and how can AI help overcome them?” [1]
The number of technology options out there can be overwhelming, and each one claims to have the magic pill for all your problems. To cut through the noise, you should spend time on defining the problems your business is experiencing and assess what’s right for you. There is a reason we’ve been around for over 20 years. Our customers trust us to do what is right for them.
At Inisoft, we’ve integrated several generative AI features into our customer experience products and continue to strategically manage the security and reliability of our integrations. Looking ahead, our product roadmap for AI-powered functionality includes scripting and knowledge base bolt-ons that are easy to add and will provide a return on investment quickly.
Get in touch about AI
Contact Karl O’Connor directly to start a conversation about our AI solutions.
About the authors
Karl O’Connor is Head of Business Development at Inisoft. Connect with Karl on LinkedIn.
Simone Hutchinson is Technical Author at Inisoft. Connect with Simone on LinkedIn.
Sources
[1] Simon Hall, ‘AI in CX – The Practicalities – CCW Digital Europe 2024 Conference’. Simon Hall is an industry analyst at CCW Europe Digital.