AI is more of an enabler than a disruptor

According to Sourav Ganguly, Head Premier Support at Lenovo Asia Pacific, we must look at the journey of the customer and customize accordingly. Today time is becoming very important at every touch point. The value is for the time and experience together. Edited excerpts from a video interview…

The CX journey…

The customer experience journey starts from evaluation, then on to pre-purchase, purchase, and post-purchase. The next stage is the long-term relationship with the product and experience, till the customer moves on to the newer version or a new type of product or experience. In each touch point in that journey, there’s an experience and a point of contact, and this defines CX. Looking at it in a simpler way: In whatever you do to make business more profitable and more efficient, the customer must be at the centre of everything.

Is AI a disruptor in the CX domain?

I personally feel that AI is more of an enabler than a disruptor. Technology advancement has been taking place for ages. Look at the experience of a customer going back to thousands of years in the Mesopotamian times when there was a barter system. They used to exchange things like wheat keeping in mind who is the best and most comfortable customer for them.

Then around the time of the first World War in the early 1900s, a lot of companies came into the picture where products were made keeping the customer satisfaction in mind. Finally in the last 20 years CX has changed a lot. Not just from the traditional way of the experience of delivering things but also being proactive rather than reactive. From product-driven, market-driven and technology-driven it is going towards customer-driven.

The digital platform plays a strong role for the experience of the future customers. When we look at digital, we look at the convenience of usage, the effortlessness of passing through different stages and seeking for a solution. Finally, we must reach out to the customer again and again with a wow factor.

Coming back to AI, we have made a couple of changes, not only things like creating visibility of dashboards. We are integrating the personas of different customers. It could be a housewife or doctor or lawyer or a school student. It could even be an aged person who has not been aware of technology till now but is still trying to understand it discussing it with his children.

That is how we are building our AI models. This goes hand in hand with Machine Learning. We looked at bots and the Metaverse to a certain extent. Now in the current model ChatGPT has also come up to create more executive dashboard visibility which is convenient for the decision makers. That’s why AI is more of an enabler and the technology will keep evolving.

Rise of the digital platform

In the last few years of the pandemic, the mobile became a very handy device for not only ordering groceries and food at the home but also doing things like distant learning. That’s why app at your service and interactive apps are important. We must look at the journey of the customer or user and customize accordingly. Today time is becoming very important at every touch point. The value is for the time and experience together.

The digital platform plays a strong role for the experience of the future customers. When we look at digital, we look at the convenience of usage, the effortlessness of passing through different stages and seeking for a solution. Finally, we must reach out to the customer again and again with a wow factor.

Data science is becoming more stronger day by day. Data is a very crucial factor. Without direction or right analytics, data is of no use. Companies are using data science field and technologies more effectively to point in the right direction to the management.

I would also like to touch upon employee experience. Each employee in any organization, from a small startup to a large organization that may be a hundred years old, their persona, culture and behaviour is very important. If the employee experience is more defined, and more organized, using technologies in the backend, the outcome will be very positive for the customers.

Some examples of CX implementations…

We have moved from traditional to real time survey processes in the system. We used AI chatbots to deflect certain customers from a voice channel to a non-voice channel. We used predictive analytics tools. We used voice-tech analytics tools and customer sentiment analysis and then mapped those cases. KPIs and processes were built up through real-time and dynamic dashboards. This gives a clear vision to drive delivery.

(Catch the complete interview at the Dataquest India YouTube channel)

Sourav Ganguly

Head Premier Support, Lenovo Asia Pacific

sunilr@cybermedia.co.in