Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2024. Read them in this 16th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
Exploring Tomorrow: Predictions for Customer Experience and AI in 2024
By Sohaib Ahmed is a Senior Director of CX Program Strategy at HGS
2023 has been monumental for the customer experience (CX) industry. Over the course of the past year, the industry has noticed a change in what customers value, with a move towards more seamless interactions and a growing interest in the practical use of AI.
As we approach 2024, the CX landscape is set to undergo significant transformations, driven by these evolving customer expectations and the relentless progression of technology. These shifts signal the following five predictions for the CX industry heading into 2024:
1. The Power and Role of AI
In 2023, businesses eagerly jumped on the AI bandwagon, but the reality often fell short of expectations. The rush to implement advanced AI solutions sometimes resulted in poor planning, leaving customers frustrated as their urgent needs took a backseat to the excitement of new technology.
Heading into 2024, AI remains relatively new in the business world, but its potential for revolutionizing CX is enormous. Generative AI, in particular, is making waves across industries, from banking and finance to healthcare and customer service. Tools like ChatGPT, Bard, Claude, Synthesia, and Coherent Generate are optimizing CX operations.
Businesses have already integrated AI into various facets of customer interactions, from managing inquiries and processing returns to serving as virtual assistants throughout the customer journey. This integration has led to a more personalized experience for customers, akin to the in-person shopping experience. AI-powered chats and tools not only facilitate customer inquiries but also provide tailored insights into the products customers actively seek, ultimately contributing to increased average order values (AOV).
Implementing AI solutions specifically in contact centers can lead to faster issue resolution, improved customer responses, enhanced self-service tools, fewer complaints, and better agent training. Happy agents, in turn, lead to happy customers. AI solutions empower contact centers to quickly understand and address customer issues through automated approaches, improving overall customer satisfaction.
2. Seamless Omnichannel Experience Takes Center Stage
Businesses are in a constant struggle to evolve with technology so they can identify customer needs and expectations accurately. This is because customer expectations constantly shift and are a leading determinant in the decision-making process. A key trend for 2024 is a focus on delivering a seamless omnichannel experience, recognizing the importance of aligning with customer values and emotions. Failure to do so may pose challenges for both customers and internal agents, emphasizing the need for thoughtful decision-making.
Creating a seamless omnichannel experience goes beyond mere operational efficiency – it demands a nuanced understanding of customer expectations. While speed in issue resolution is crucial, customers increasingly seek interactions that align with their values and emotions. Superficial or not, this alignment significantly influences the overall CX.
When companies neglect to factor in the emotional and value-centric aspects of CX, the frontline agent becomes the bearer of the consequences, which not only impacts customer satisfaction but triggers a chain reaction of challenges internally and externally, with dissatisfied customers and agents grappling with the fallout. A holistic approach to omnichannel experience should seamlessly blend efficiency with a genuine acknowledgment of customer values and emotions to ensure a robust and sustainable CX strategy.
3. Augmented Reality (AR) Speeds Up Resolutions
As organizations gear up for the evolving AI landscape, incorporating augmented reality technologies demands upfront effort but holds the potential for significant payoffs, particularly for specialized product and service organizations. Anticipated to gain momentum as a pivotal tool for support processes, companies are expected to harness AR not only to initiate support procedures but also to expedite escalations, resulting in faster resolution of tickets.
The immersive nature of AR allows for a more intuitive and efficient interaction between customers and support systems. By overlaying virtual elements in the real-world environment, AR facilitates a visual and interactive support experience. This forward-looking approach aligns with the broader trend of leveraging technology to enhance customer interactions, providing a glimpse into the innovative strategies that companies will adopt to elevate their CX offerings in the coming year.
As businesses explore the potential of AR in customer support, the ability to swiftly address issues and streamline ticket resolutions is expected to be a key differentiator in the competitive CX landscape of 2024.
4. Predictive Customer Experiences
In 2024, major advancements in AI and machine learning are set to revolutionize predictive customer experiences. The spotlight will be on the need to pivot from traditional “legacy” big data platforms to more sophisticated AI-driven solutions. The shortcomings of these conventional platforms have become evident in their struggle to efficiently collect and synthesize the vast data generated, a challenge exacerbated by the inability to factor in the cost considerations.
As AI continues to evolve, predictive customer experience is set to not only become more accurate but also more agile in adapting to the rapidly changing dynamics of customer behavior. However, as the reliance on AI becomes more pervasive, addressing and mitigating biases within these systems will be a crucial facet of responsible AI deployment. If an AI model is trained on subpar data, such as being too sparse, not diverse enough, biased, or of poor quality, it can make erroneous predictions that cause harm to the company, customers, and even society as a whole.
AI is helping to positively change business, government, education, and quality of life; but being created by humans, it can also inherit our flaws and biases. To mitigate that risk, companies must pay attention to the data used to train AI models.
This shift in the CX landscape promises a more personalized, responsive, and cost-effective customer experience landscape, underscoring the potential for positive transformation while emphasizing the importance of ethical considerations in AI deployment.
5. Collaboration Between Humans and AI
To prepare for the new year, investing in AI is paramount, but companies must not overlook the importance of fostering the human element of AI.
With so much chatter around AI replacing humans, it’s time to level set. The technology is trainable and adaptable – which means someone (enter, humans) must train it and serve as a complement to its capabilities. This synergy between AI solutions and humans enhances a business’s ability to cater to customer needs. Despite the vast expanse of online information, extracting practical and effective data is a formidable task. AI addresses this challenge by aggregating information for agents, supplementing it with insights, and providing accurate answers to various questions.
By integrating AI tools, contact centers empower agents to elevate the customer experience. Striking a well-balanced collaboration between AI and human elements can result in better-trained and more enduring contact center employees.
As we venture into the new year, one thing is clear: the CX industry is poised for unprecedented transformation. The advancements made in 2023 have set the stage for customer expectations, technology, and human collaboration to converge and redefine the core of CX.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sohaib Ahmed is a Senior Director of CX Program Strategy at HGS, the leader in digital-led customer experience and business process management, where he builds relationships with marketplaces and connects companies with comprehensive CX solutions. His expertise spans cloud communications, automation, AI, and lean operations to provide technological and operational insights. Prior to HGS, Sohaib served in a technology strategy consulting role covering North America and EMEA with Accenture, specializing in the BFSI, retail, and energy sectors. Sohaib holds a master’s degree in computer science.
