New technology like AI, and sophisticated language models will drive a competitive advantage for your CX and operations, but are leaders laggards? 

Customer satisfaction, a measure of Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT), Net Promoter Score (NPS) and Customer Effort Score (CES) is a constant challenge. CX leaders want to know how to keep customers satisfied, but simultaneously keep service costs as low as possible. Self-serve tools are only part of this equation. 

Using self-service and call deflection tactics to reduce cost is one thing, but when it comes time for customers to reach out, every employee must know why they are reaching out to you with a high degree of certainty. Forcing them to repeat themselves builds anger and frustration, so when they do talk to an agent, your agent is exposed to more frequent burn out events. 

Wellness and churn is the biggest challenge that CX leader face in the call centers. The cost and speed to train the new team members is quite significant and burnout cost. As we’ve previously reported, in a 10,000 agent organization, 15% of them suffer from burnout, with half the call center at risk. This amounts to a $26 million cost annually at just one organization.  

AI can help CX leaders get ahead, but will they rush to adopt these tools, empower their agents, and satisfy customers? I have my doubts.  

Over my career, I’ve watched timelines stretch as high as five years from start to finish. In the planning stage, it may take two years to secure funding and make technology purchases alone. Finally, placing the order with a vendor of choice, design, installation, testing and going live can take up to three years. In the end, these companies ended up no better than their comps. 

Making matters worse, during that 5-year time frame, their customer quickly evolved with the latest and greatest technology. In these exciting times, with cloud platforms that deliver huge functionality “out of the box,” biometrics, and incredible mobile phone technology. They have the tools for CX leaders like you and me to help them quickly and save time on our end. But we’re still stuck. 

It’s time to fess up. Human change management is the biggest threat to CX innovation. It is already slowing up the process and therefore reducing the speed to market. I say this all the time, but today it’s even more relevant: “It’s not the big beating the small, but the fast beating the slow.” 

Using modern tools like deep analytics, automation, real time analytics with live customer interaction and now AI tools, demonstrated by OpenAI’s ChatGPT, will drive huge value to you and most importantly your customers. 

Having data presented to leaders in a quick, digestible way is the key to delivering huge savings to your company.  

Addressing all the usual KPIs and ultimately delivering greater speed to market is a competitive advantage. And who doesn’t like a competitive advantage? It helps leaders make decisions that only warm-blooded people can do, like empathy, compassion, love, creative thinking; skills robots don’t have.