In last week’s blog in our series on AI and CX, we took a deep dive into how AI can be integrated into your organization’s CX strategy in a way that aligns with your business goals and values. We shared how a clearly defined and iterative process to embed your insights into CX improvement initiatives, combined with empathy towards both customer and employees play a pivotal role in determining the outcomes of your investments into AI. 

How can I stay ahead of the curve in CX innovation and technology, while also staying true to the core principles of customer-centricity and empathy?

In this week’s blog, we are focused on the third of ten questions in our series: How can I stay ahead of the curve in CX innovation and technology, while also staying true to the core principles of customer-centricity and empathy?  Like before, we’ll quickly share some thoughts on how well ChatGPT did answering this question, then share our own perspective.  In the spirit of human-to-human collaboration (vs. just taking advantage of ChatGPT to reduce human effort), I’m collaborating on this blog with Farzad Aref, who is the founder of Farlinium, one of my strategic partners for JourneySpark Consulting.  I’m excited to team with Farlinium to help clients unlock greater value from innovative AI use cases, including implementation of Qualtrics’ XM Discover platform.

Chat GPT’s Answer (repeated here, verbatim from ChatGPT): 

Staying ahead of the curve in CX innovation and technology while also staying true to the core principles of customer-centricity and empathy can be challenging, but it is possible. Here are some strategies to help you achieve this balance:

1. Stay up-to-date with CX trends and technologies: Keep yourself informed about the latest CX trends and technologies by attending industry events, reading blogs and publications, and networking with peers. This will help you stay ahead of the curve and identify opportunities for innovation.

2. Understand your customers: Invest in customer research and analytics to gain insights into customer behaviors, preferences, and pain points. This will enable you to identify opportunities to innovate while remaining customer-centric.

3. Focus on the human element: While technology is important, don't forget about the human element of CX. Empathy and human interaction are still critical to delivering a great customer experience, so ensure that your CX strategy includes both technological and human elements.

4. Experiment and iterate: Try new ideas and technologies, and be willing to iterate and refine them based on customer feedback. This will help you stay agile and adaptable in the face of changing customer needs and preferences.

5. Empower your employees: Ensure that your employees are trained and empowered to deliver a great customer experience. This includes providing them with the tools and resources they need to deliver excellent customer service, as well as empowering them to make decisions that benefit the customer.

6. Maintain a customer-centric culture: Embed customer-centricity into your organizational culture by ensuring that all employees understand the importance of delivering a great customer experience. This includes providing regular training and feedback, and incentivizing behaviors that align with customer-centric values.

By following these strategies, you can stay ahead of the curve in CX innovation and technology while remaining true to the core principles of customer-centricity and empathy. Remember that CX innovation is about finding new ways to meet customer needs and preferences, and that technology should be used as a tool to support this goal, rather than as an end in itself.

Our Thoughts

In last week’s blog we called out ChatGPT’s inclination to keep its answers at 30,000 feet. This week’s answer by ChatGPT does better on that score, providing specific, actionable steps you can take to stay ahead of the curve in CX.  What’s missing though, are any sparks of inspiration for how to use AI as part of your CX.  ChatGPT’s answer is pragmatic, but doesn’t come across as particularly innovative or emotionally engaging, as ChatGPT focuses on process over substance in its answer to this week’s question.

“Bold Bets” vs. “Brilliant Basics”

To build on ChatGPT’s good but not great answer, here are some starter thoughts on places you could focus to get more ahead of the curve with some “bold bets” vs. just applying AI to the “brilliant basics”:

• Tap into the potential of generative AI to go beyond live chat for customer service issues to truly deliver expertise to customers.  For BtoC brands, use this to reinforce your role as a category leader. For BtoB brands, use this to project your expertise in the market in always-on ways that complement your sales organization, innovation center or presence at conferences.

• Create more personalized experiences that allow you to tailor your content to your customer’s goal directed behavior.  While generative AI is less likely to replace your video campaigns any time soon, it is more likely up to the challenge for more “transactional” content to engage customers in their path to purchase.

• Optimize training of your call center agents, sales force, in store associates, or other frontline employees.  Mine your customer interactions to understand the “words that work” better for what creates a positive or negative emotional reaction during the experience.  Explore and further customize simulation training tools that allow you to train against these insights with your frontline employees, for example using VR or  recorded video sessions.  Engage your frontline employees to optimize this over a continuous improvement cycle.

• Better measure the congruence of your CX with your brand strategy.  Use platforms like Qualtrics XM Discover for “intelligent scoring” of the key emotions you’d like customers to feel for key moments that matter on their journey.

This is not an exhaustive list.  If you’d like to discuss these or explore other opportunities, please feel free to reach out to Farzad or myself.

Up Next Week

Next week’s blog will take a deep dive into ChatGPT’s answer on how AI can be used to automate and personalize customer interactions as well as how it can optimize human-to-human interactions. I’ll post weekly on this topic every Wednesday covering each of the ten questions, collaborating with my business partners for JourneySpark Consulting on these blogs. I’ll also continue to post one of my book reviews for my favorite ten business books every Friday. If you’d like to jump ahead to see all ten reviews now, click here to check them out.

If you'd like to see the earlier blogs in this AI & CX series, click here.

We’re looking forward to continuing the conversation!