Survey identifies priorities for technology deployments and overall budget spend
Customer Experience (CX) decision makers in the US are betting big on Artificial Intelligence with 46% of respondents already implementing generative AI solutions to assist with customer interactions, according to a new research report.
But spending to improve employee experience (EX) is lagging, says the CX Buyers’ Insights Report by Hinduja Global Solutions (HGS) (listed in BSE & NSE), a leader in technology-led customer experience (CX).
The findings are based on a survey of US CX decision makers to identify priorities for technology deployments and overall budget spend benefitting both customer and employee experience initiatives.
With advancements like generative AI and automation, the way organizations approach CX looks increasingly different in the modern business landscape.
This new research highlights the CX change management challenges many companies face and the decisions required to determine where to invest the time, energy, and capital in effectively reengineering processes through technology that creates the seamless modern experience customers expect.
“HGS sought to create a compendium for CX and EX decision makers to reference when prioritizing budgets and solutions to implement,” said Andrew Kokes, EVP and global head of marketing for HGS.
“In the past, we have looked only at pain points for implementation, but this year, we have turned to serving as a resource for committing funds when planning for the next 12 to 18 months,” he said in a release on 12 Dec 2023.
When it comes to deploying CX solutions, decision makers are betting big on artificial intelligence (AI), with 58% of respondents committing to deployment of some AI tech over the next 18 months.
These investments include:
– Customer-facing chatbots (37%)
– Generative AI and speech-to-text applications (30%)
– Robotic process automation (28%)
While tech has been a priority, CX decision makers who arm call center employees with solutions and accelerators can make it really count.
The most common CX-related technologies already deployed include data analytics tools for contact center team leads (53%), digital support for omnichannel customer interactions (49%), and dynamic knowledge bases for agent access to learning tools (47%).
While 21% of organizations cite their tech investment strategy as a top priority for bringing faster resolution to customer issues, there is still a need to focus on human employees throughout the CX process.
Attraction and retention of skilled call centre employees is crucial for advancing CX initiatives, with 54% of survey respondents citing attraction and retention of CX employees as a top priority. Despite this, just 18% of survey respondents listed talent investments as a top priority for budgeting, and 70% of CX decision makers surveyed said they have not invested high dollar amounts into employee morale.
“Certain suites of software accelerators are relatively easy to implement across call center and CX operations,” said Kokes.
“Fast access to automated responses, customer interaction and account information, and an extensive digital knowledge base for on-the-fly learning put everything into a sort of ‘single pane of glass’ (SPoG) for CX employees, improving both CX and EX at the same time.” Fiinews.com
