Why you can’t solve CX challenges with AI alone

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has advanced a lot in the last decade. Machine learning was a major breakthrough that launched massive global investment. Some estimate that corporate investment in AI in 2020 reached $68 billion. As a result, AI is disrupting multiple industries and its affects will be far reaching in our personal and business lives.

In the world of CX, AI is just as active as in other parts of the business, but its success has had some ups and downs. For example, in the areas of Agent Assistance and robotic process automation (RPA), AI is making a big impact. In the area of chat, human operators  have played a significant role in some of the highest-profile AI launches. 

When it comes to deployed chatbots, AI technology isn’t a panacea. In fact, many chatbots aren’t strictly AI – that is, they don’t always use machine learning to drive improvement. Those that do still take considerable human effort to train and keep current.

When the communication capabilities of a chatbot are working well, they can still struggle to provide accurate information. This is partly the result of the information available in FAQs and knowledge bases, which, in their own right, frequently struggle to provide accurate and easy-to-follow solutions to common issues.

Unfortunately, because FAQs are searchable and most chatbot implementations use the FAQ as their basis for their intelligence, chatbots end up being another access point to FAQ information. It’s faster and easier to go directly to the source. Because of this, chatbots become a gatekeeper to a human, just like IVRs were in the 2000s.

Still, like other self-service, AI is worth the investment and has an important role to play both in cost savings and meeting customer expectations.

Self-service works best in transactional or informational situations, such as getting your account balance, choosing a seat on the airline, transferring funds, or other quick exchanges of information.

Self-service isn’t appropriate in situations where your customer sees the outcome of the help as relational. There are enumerable examples of this, such as onboarding struggles when the company-customer relationship is still fresh, usage questions related to best practices, and product compatibility workarounds. 

This is where GigCX Experts really shine. They come to the table with existing knowledge of your company’s products and services. That makes them uniquely suited to deal with a wide range of issues, including traditional FAQ help and more complex product and service interactions that can elude typical contact center knowledge bases. 

GigCX Experts are also real people who use your products and services and can connect with customers in a way that is unavailable to chatbots for the foreseeable future. Their affinity with fellow humans in their “tribe” also fosters a natural relationship you can’t find with AI technology and rarely find when communicating with someone in a contact center.

Zwift, a Limitless customer, is a great example of this. Their cycling tribe uses language that is frankly unavailable to anyone outside of the cycling world. No amount of training of contact center employees will come close to this level of comradery. 

Zwift saw a massive  lift in its customer experience results when they started matching customers with customers to provide help on the Limitless GigCX platform. With much faster response times and lower costs, Zwift has used its GigCX Crowd to grow its business in a time when hiring traditional contact center agents has gotten considerably more difficult.

On top of that, its brand has struck a balance using chatbots for transaction and informational help while giving customers the option to connect with a GigCX Expert when their issue needs a human touch.

Limitless uses AI throughout the GigCX platform to enhance the customer experience and optimize the customer journey. We use AI upfront to identify each customer request and determine how to treat it for help. We create this protocol in collaboration with our clients and optimize it to meet customer goals for service quality and response speed. The AI either answers help requests or routes them to the best resources, which might include GigCX Experts or traditional contact center resources. Our AI provides GigCX Experts with recommended responses within the platform to improve their efficiency.

Customers rate the responses, which helps continually improve the AI and suggested responses for Experts. In addition, we review each GigCX Expert response for quality, accuracy, and their effectiveness at helping customers. The results from these processes are used to inform knowledge base updates so the best answers are available for both self-service and suggestion responses to GigCX Experts.

AI with machine learning is certainly a valuable software innovation and its use can be a powerful addition to many customer experience situations. Limitless clients take advantage of AI through the Limitless GigCX Platform to improve the agility of their customer service and sales operations. So can you. 

Did you know 78% of  customer experience experts said they had already deployed or planned to deploy GigCX in the next two years? It’s time to consider it in your business. Check out our eBook “5 Reasons You Need a GigCX Plan.”

Plus, learn more about the Limitless GigCX platform – powerful software that makes it easy to onboard experts, integrate them into your existing customer journey, ensure quality, and compensate them for their help.