In the first of a series of articles exploring how CX in the customer service and enterprise messaging world is evolving, Tata Communications explains how current trends from AI to big data to greater adoption of cloud and self-service tools are impacting on the market’s development.
“We’re in a different world for CX that now encompasses live-assist, human-assisted bots, virtual digital assistants and multiple channels for customers to choose from,” says Karan Batra, the Senior Manager for Product and Proposition Marketing at Tata Communications.
“CX has evolved away from exclusive using live agents on phones and now encompasses an omni-channel environment in which customers choose how and when they communicate. Enterprises are moving to address this need by harnessing the power of new technology enablers”
This evolution is being powered by the coming together of different technologies to enable richer, more flexible CX . Artificial intelligence (AI) is being utilised to save time, increase efficiency and ensure experiences are consistent, regardless of the channel utilised. A recent study has highlighted that businesses plan to increase their investments in in-app chat-bot technology by 48%, in employee helpdesk technology by 42% and in interactive voice response (IVR) technology by 40%. Call centres are deriving benefits from data-driven insights, increasing productivity by 59.9% and resulting in 36.2% better decision making.
“At the same time, the move from legacy infrastructure to cloud-based apps is resulting in reduced opex, zero capex and improved agent productivity,” adds Batra. “The response to the COVID-19 pandemic has also seen a huge increase in utilisation of self-service technology such as IVR, which has seen 33% of companies adopt IVR for the first time and 42% of companies increase their existing usage of IVR.”
Improvements from the increasing use of AI with human call centre agents have been estimated to result in a 69% improvement in agent satisfaction, a 68% increase in operational efficiency, 66% better agent productivity and a 61% uplift in customer satisfaction.
Open programmable application programme interfaces (APIs) are also driving improved customer experiences and better return on investment on CX tools. Such APIs enable organisations to plug in technical capabilities that were previously impossible to implement. These encompass click-to-call capabilities and data processing that have wider benefits to digital transformation efforts, among many others.
“The flexibility that open programmable APIs enable means enterprises can implement tools and capabilities that were previously unviable,” says Batra. “It’s not just about plugging in more functionality, though, it’s also important that enterprises keep focused on the ROI they can achieve in CX by evaluating their performance and the performance of their CX tools.”
Batra highlights four key areas in which enterprises can track key performance indicators (KPIs) around CX. He singles out customer loyalty and brand KPIs such as increased customer lifetime value, reduced churn, the customer effort score and improved CSAT scoring as essential indicators. Next, he advocates focusing on customer operations KPIs such as improved average time resolution, first contact resolutions and reduced average wait time.
It’s not just the customer experience that delivers important KPIs, happy employees also demonstrate efficient CX and are an important part of the CX ROI. Batra therefore cites KPIs that focus on employee engagement including improved employee productivity indicated by increased revenue per employee and improved employee engagement as significant indicators that help measure ROI. Finally, and obviously when attempting to calculate ROI, there are financial KPIs to consider, such as reduced cost to retain or acquire customers, that lead to an improved bottom line.
The trends outlined earlier are driving a new era of CX and giving enterprises greater visibility into their CX performance. Tata Communications will explore what enterprises need to focus on when choosing CX partners, the role of their people in delivering the right CX and how to select the right tools and technologies for delivering CX in the next article in this series
