Customer Experience Podcast

This year has undeniably been dominated by the rise of AI, bringing both positive and negative outcomes. We host Alex Mead, Global Customer Service Experience Director of Alvarez & Marsal (alexmead@sky.com), to discuss this crucial topic and its implications for experiences. 

Mead envisions that AI will significantly reduce customer effort in their experiences. He anticipates a future where customers can simply ask, “Where’s my order from two days ago?” and that’s all it takes for AI to swiftly provide the desired information.

In this scenario, Mead highlights two crucial aspects. First, AI will grasp natural language interfaces, a concept that has been evolving for at least the past three years. This means we can communicate with AI as if we’re conversing with a human, whether through speech or text. Second, AI will promptly authenticate the speaker and retrieve the requested information, cross-referencing it against various data points and platforms in under a second.

Some of you might be thinking, “Don’t we already do this with devices like Alexa?” You certainly do, and it works seamlessly. 

However, Mead emphasizes that the significance lies in the widespread adoption of this capability. While organizations like Amazon have already implemented it, the prediction is that many more organizations will follow suit in the coming years.

Furthermore, Mead envisions AI going beyond information retrieval. AI will also discern or intuit whether the provided information places the customer on a path of contentment or dissatisfaction. 

In this episode, we hear what Mead thinks about AI and the pathways for its utility in experiences in the short and long term. We also talk about what all this functionality of the AI of tomorrow means to you in managing your experiences today.

Here are some other key moments in the discussion:

• 04:11 Mead kicks off the discussion about AI with his predictions for the short term, meaning the next one to five years, and it might surprise you to hear how easy it will be for customers.

• 11:51 We discuss examples of how future AI-enabled CXs will have more proactivity than they do today.

• 16:38  We learn about the Customer Service Experience and why it is essential to understand what it is and when it occurs for today’s organizations.

• 21:44  Mead explains how to implement an AI strategy for the organization that is cohesive and drives the goals of your entire company rather than one siloed department.  

• 31:57  We all share the key takeaways we have from the discussion and how organizations should use this information today. 

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About Colin Shaw

LinkedIn recognizes Colin Shaw as one of the ‘World’s Top 150 Business Influencers.’ As a result, he has over 294,000 followers and 78,000 subscribers to his LinkedIn newsletter ‘Why Customers Buy’. The Financial Times selected Beyond Philosophy as one of the best management consultancies for four years. 

Colin is a renown keynote speaker and undertakes consultancy work and educational workshops to help organizations improve their Customer Experience. 

Click here to learn more about Professor Ryan Hamilton of Emory University. 

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