1、TECH GUIDECUSTOMER SERVICE TECH GUIDE:CAN AI REIN IN COSTS WHILE ENHANCING THE SHOPPER EXPERIENCE?SPONSORED BY2CUSTOMER SERVICE TECH GUIDE:CAN AI REIN IN COSTS WHILE ENHANCING THE SHOPPER EXPERIENCE?Any retailer,from the smallest corner bodega to the largest multinational,will stress their commitmen

2、t to providing superior customer service its been a cornerstone of retailing for as long as theres been retailing.But when you look at the actual mechanics involved in fulfilling those promises,retailers ambivalence starts to show through.Retailers know that offering effective customer support is vi

3、tal,whether via phone,chat or SMS text.But it is especially so for DTC brands and ecommerce retailers lacking physical stores where customer service issues can be handled face to face and in real time.Its also expensive and resource-intensive to maintain an army of agents,particularly with the curre

4、nt tight labor market.New technologies,especially generative AI,are promising greater efficiencies and savings,and many are delivering but theyre always in a race with ever-rising customer expectations.The holy grail is to control customer service costs without scrimping on the customer experience(C

5、X).“Theres a lot of focus on making customer service at least cost-neutral,but everyone is also focused on making it a revenue generator,”said Pat McClard,Director of Account Management at HGS in an interview with Retail TouchPoints.“You have the customer talking to you during a customer service int

6、eraction,so its crazy not to use that,”to upsell or cross-sell additional products and services.INTRODUCTION3CUSTOMER SERVICE TECH GUIDE:CAN AI REIN IN COSTS WHILE ENHANCING THE SHOPPER EXPERIENCE?Map the relationships between user experience(UX)and CX,and show how investments in these areas can low

7、er customer service costs;Identify what AI-powered solutions already are accomplishing in this area;and Explore how AI,predictive analytics and customer data can be combined to improve customer service while lowering costs.The challenge,as every retailer knows,is that most customer service interacti

8、ons start with a shopper who is at best confused and at worst irate:“85%to 90%of the time the customer isnt happy when they contact you,but you have to think about it as an opportunity,”said McClard,noting that some of the best relationships between a brand and a customer begin over resolving a thor

9、ny issue.“If you know youre going to stand by your customer and do the right thing,that can turn someone having a negative experience into an evangelist for your brand,”he added.Smart retailers also want to minimize avoidable customer service issues and the costly need to address them with support m

10、echanisms by improving CX.“The quality of the experience really has become an absolutely strategic aspect of any digital business,”said Alfonso de la Nuez,Board Member and Lead Digital Director at User Testing in an interview with Retail TouchPoints.This tech guide will:“85%to 90%of the time the cus

11、tomer isnt happy when they contact you,but you have to think about it as an opportunity.If you know youre going to stand by your customer and do the right thing,that can turn someone having a negative experience into an evangelist for your brand.”Pat McClard,HGS4CUSTOMER SERVICE TECH GUIDE:CAN AI RE

12、IN IN COSTS WHILE ENHANCING THE SHOPPER EXPERIENCE?Retailers often say that the best customer service call is the one that doesnt happen in other words,the customer is so happy(or at least contented)with your product or service that theres no need for them to call,chat or text.Companies that invest

13、in improving their UX and CX will likely be able to tamp down the need for expensive customer service interactions.De la Nuez explained the similarities and distinctions between UX and CX.UX is“closer to the design and development of the product for your first experience,where youre not yet paying f

14、or a service or product,just using the application.CX is a sister concept to UX,but it is broader,and its mostly talking to customers after the fact”of their purchase,he said,adding that“before you become a customer,you may be a user.”In other words,a good UX can smooth the path to a new shopper bec

15、oming a repeat customer.De la Nuez gave an example from his own life:“One Friday afternoon my kids were really hungry and wanted pizza.This was during the pandemic and I had never used any of the food ordering apps like DoorDash or Grubhub,so I downloaded the app quickly.I was a user for the few min

16、utes of signing up and looking for pizza,and that was a user experience.But when I bought the pizza,got it delivered and went on using the app,that became a digital customer experience.”With both UX and CX,but particularly with the latter,“theres a lot of psychology in the quality of the experience,

17、”said de la Nuez.“Its not necessarily about the interface being aesthetically pleasing,but it has to have a professional look.More importantly,its about the quality of the navigation,whether thats about finding products,signing up for a service or buying something and through all of this,always comm

18、unicating about whats going on in these various processes.”Customers are looking for clear,concrete information,provided to them at the right time and in the right context:“Will it take two days to deliver?And is this price the ultimate price with shipping,taxes,etc.figured in?”If the CX doesnt prov

19、ide these answers,“there will be an empathy or experience gap and that will have users talking to customer service a lot more,”said de la Nuez.While“developers and designers will sometimes say about an unintuitive element in the CX that users will figure it out,”this can prove to be a dangerous atti

20、tude,de la Nuez noted.He defined good CX as“really meeting and then exceeding the expectations of users and customers.The customer service system needs to understand who they are,what their needs are and what they have come to do today,and then offer them the most convenient,efficient,effective jour

21、ney they can have.”STEP 1:FIX YOUR UX AND CX5CUSTOMER SERVICE TECH GUIDE:CAN AI REIN IN COSTS WHILE ENHANCING THE SHOPPER EXPERIENCE?Retail TouchPoints(RTP):Ill start with a really basic question how do you define a good customer experience(CX)?Jaime Lightfoot:Good CX today is showing your customers

22、 that you understand them,by tailoring products,services and experiences,including sales and marketing efforts,to that individual customer and their preferences.Its also about how you meet them in the way they want to be met,honoring their preferences in terms of interactions and communicating with

23、them in a format that they prefer.RTP:Everyone is talking about generative AI.Are you seeing it have a big impact in the customer service/CX area?Lightfoot:AI is the number-one topic coming up with our clients,regardless of industry,and its very prevalent in our conversations in retail and CPG.The C

24、apgemini Research Institute has done surveys with both tech executives and consumers and found that about one-fifth of executives are seeing generative AI as a major disruptor to their business,and over 90%are talking about it in executive leadership meetings.Across the board,the key areas where gen

25、erative AI is likely to make an impact are sales and service,IT and marketing and of course there are synergies between marketing and sales/service.In service particularly,generative AI can be a big enabler,because some of the quick-win use cases are in chatbots or virtual assistants.Its capable of

26、providing better search functions for customer queries even if its a human agent interacting,they can find answers to questions faster than if they had to search on their own.Q&A with Jaime Lightfoot,VP of Customer Experience,CapgeminiGENERATIVE AI IS ALREADY STREAMLINING CUSTOMER SERVICE FOR CONSUM

27、ERS AND AGENTS6CUSTOMER SERVICE TECH GUIDE:CAN AI REIN IN COSTS WHILE ENHANCING THE SHOPPER EXPERIENCE?Among the consumers we surveyed,many believe generative AI will heighten customer experience,with 50%saying theyre excited by the use of generative AI for highly immersive,interactive experiences.I

28、n fact,70%of consumers already rely on generative AI tools for product and service recommendations.AI also is helpful in summarizing conversations.There are applications that have been in use for several years that do this automate the process of creating a recap that you could send to a customer bu

29、t AI-powered tools summarize that content more succinctly,and also identify the key elements of the conversation and the customer sentiment piece as well.Were also seeing it being used for email generation as well as for personalized content and ad creation,using personalized images that may resonat

30、e with customers better than traditional advertising images.RTP:It sounds like this AI use case makes more sense if a brand or retailer already has some information on its customers.Lightfoot:Its true,brands have put a lot of focus on their existing customers,whether those are consumers or B2B custo

31、mers.For customer service agents and marketers,having that information at your fingertips and the ability to personalize that experience will be critical to maintaining and growing the value of a companys customer base.RTP:What are some other key technologies that are or will be important in the CX/

32、customer service area?Lightfoot:Predictive analytics that use a customer data hub or platform will be essential for personalization insight.Retailers can use analytics to look at a customers interaction history,browsing history,which products and services theyve purchased before and also their servi

33、ce experiences,and use all of this info to predict their likely next steps.This could help in how you sell and market to them,but also in how you serve them for example with predictive maintenance of products.That way,you can stay a step ahead before they experience an issue.Or if a flag comes up th

34、at the retailer has lost tracking ability on an order,you can send a message that says,“Weve seen the issue and were working to correct it.”Its helpful to get ahead to show the customer how youre working to resolve the issue.7CUSTOMER SERVICE TECH GUIDE:CAN AI REIN IN COSTS WHILE ENHANCING THE SHOPP

35、ER EXPERIENCE?Artificial intelligence adoption by all kinds of global businesses had already been on a strong growth path,even before the 2022 hype explosion around ChatGPT and other forms of generative AI.A McKinsey global business survey,The State of AI in 2022 and a Half Decade in Review,revealed

36、 that AI adoption more than doubled,rising from 20%in 2017 to 50%in 2022.The number of AI capabilities that organizations use also has doubled,from 1.9 in 2018 to 3.8 in 2022.In the customer service area,AIs impact goes well beyond its role powering chatbots,although that has been a major area of in

37、vestment so far.During a customer service interaction,“many chatbots can guide you to the right person or department,but AI will make this function a lot better,”said User Testings de la Nuez.Todays AI tools can improve customer service with their ability to not just recap or summarize a conversatio

38、n(spoken or chatted),but also identify the customers emotional attitude,in some cases in real time.“If a human has a ton of data/information that can be used to answer a question,its impossible for them to know all that,primarily because it changes all the time,”said HGS McClard.“However,if you use

39、AI to answer a question of How do I do this or that?,it can use all the content out there and provide the answer rather than the customer service agent having to sort through the data.AIS GROWING ROLE IN ENHANCING THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE8CUSTOMER SERVICE TECH GUIDE:CAN AI REIN IN COSTS WHILE ENHANCI

40、NG THE SHOPPER EXPERIENCE?“AI is good at making suggestions to humans,”McClard added.“For example,when a customer calls in,its transcribing it in real time;AI is listening and can tell the agent This is the right code for this call,or This is the optimal content to send the customer.This not only ma

41、kes things easier for customers,it also makes things easier for the agents.They dont have to stress out that there are gaps in their memory or experience.”“AI can highlight when people are frustrated,and also take this analysis to another level by suggesting solutions,”said de la Nuez.He believes th

42、at AI can be applied proactively to help predict what a particular customer will want,and that this could prove to be a particular benefit in enhancing the search experience,both for consumers and internal users.Doing this right requires more than simply deploying an AI-powered tool,of course.“Searc

43、hability of products is an issue,so whats needed is a specific field within the UX and human/computer interaction dedicated to findability and categorization,”said de la Nuez.“Companies should hire librarians or information architects;they could have a full-time job putting together how a database i

44、s done.Retailers need to organize that information,especially when the database contains lots of SKUs.”Retailers can then conduct user testing to determine the likely paths consumers will take when searching,de la Nuez added.“Then retailers need to tell their engineers This is what the user will wan

45、t to do;how do we set that up?They shouldnt just do whatever the IT department says.Amazon does this:connecting search to inventory and really understanding whether the product is there and when it will be delivered.Thats not just about how you build the UX but how you complete the experience”for th

46、e customer.“AI can highlight when people are frustrated,and also take this analysis to another level by suggesting solutions.”Alfonso de la Nuez,User Testing9CUSTOMER SERVICE TECH GUIDE:CAN AI REIN IN COSTS WHILE ENHANCING THE SHOPPER EXPERIENCE?AI is already being used for a variety of customer ser

47、vice functions:the McKinsey report revealed that 19%of respondents were using AI for customer service analytics;16%for contact-center automation;and 14%for predictive service and intervention.McClard estimated that AI is“deflecting”approximately 13%of all contact center volume.“A human is still bett

48、er at handling complaints about service or specific things about a product,particularly when emotion is involved,”he said.“When theyre emotional,most people would rather deal with a human.”However,“as AI gets better at more complex tasks over the next couple of years,that 13%will move to 50%,”he add

49、ed.“Some of the suggestions AI makes are off-key right now,but I think youll see that mostly go away due to the machine learning aspect of these tools.Theres always a feedback mechanism for agents to tell it no.”And of course,the more interactions that can be handled effectively without requiring a

50、human,the lower a companys customer service costs.That machine learning element of constant improvement can enhance other aspects of customer service.“You want to tailor the way you interact with a customer by leveraging what youve learned,”said McClard.“When you figure out a person is always going

51、to chat,offering them a phone call doesnt make sense.Or say theres a person that has been in the chat function trying to solve a problem for 10 minutes.Typically a customer service agent would intervene”to make sure that the problem actually gets solved,but maybe the system has learned that this cus

52、tomer“really prefers to chat,and his threshold of impatience is 20 minutes.”This type of actionable,individualized data will be critical for retailers seeking to keep costs under control.“Good customer service creates brand loyalty and also helps you create a better customer one who spends more and

53、costs less,”said McClard.“Thats where customer valuation comes in;you can treat customers very differently depending on their behaviors.Thats not just about how they spend,but also how often they contact you by phone versus go to a chat.Retailers can assign a value to that customer and treat them ac

54、cordingly.”McClard noted that,at least for the foreseeable future,theres no getting away from needing humans to remain involved in customer service.“A possible downside of AI is putting your own responsibilities aside and saying Its the AIs decision.You have to have an educated agent that has a basi

55、c understanding of what youre doing.And there will be screwups with AI,but there are screwups today.”WHATS AHEAD IN CX?10CUSTOMER SERVICE TECH GUIDE:CAN AI REIN IN COSTS WHILE ENHANCING THE SHOPPER EXPERIENCE?Retail TouchPoints and Design:Retail give all members of the retail world access to a vibra

56、nt community that combines insights,inspiration and opportunities to interact with their peers.We sit at the intersection of the art and science of retail strategy,providing granular data,high-value commentary,and aspirational success stories to help readers optimize customer experiences across all

57、channels.Touching all facets of the retail ecosystem,including store experience and design,workforce management,digital marketing and engagement,and omnichannel optimization,our editorial content,multi-media resources and events take timely news and trends and transform them into tactical takeaways

58、that meet the unique needs and priorities of our executive readers.LEARN MORE.A global leader in consulting,technology services and digital transformation,Capgemini is at the forefront of innovation to address the entire breadth of clients opportunities in the evolving world of cloud,digital and pla

59、tforms.Building on its strong 50-year heritage and deep industryspecific expertise,Capgemini enables organizations to realize their business ambitions through an array of services from strategy to operations.Capgemini is driven by the conviction that the business value of technology comes from and t

60、hrough people.It is a multicultural company of over 200,000 team members in more than 40 countries.The Group reported 2018 global revenues of EUR 13.2 billion(about$15.6 billion USD at 2018 average rate).Visit us at .People matter,results count.ABOUT THE AUTHORAdam Blair,EditorAvid theater-goer,intrepid journalist and grammar nag.Theres always something new to learn about retail technology.Photos courtesy of