Curiosity may have killed the cat, but for Kristy Thomas, our senior director of Customer Experience (“CX”), it’s the fuel that drives her passion for helping you realize the full potential of your CX sales opportunities. One of her many talents includes translating technology for prospective customers to ensure a solution fits their business and adds value.
We asked Kristy to share her 2023 predictions that you can use in conversations with customers and prospects.
The Era of the High-Value Agent
Welcome to the era of the “high-value agent.” To compensate for the loss of workers, automation is crucial. AI will automate mundane tasks such as password resets and extend self-service capabilities end-customers are asking for. Some predict AI and automation will affect or cut one-quarter of the jobs in the United States.
Many industries can benefit from AI and high-value agents, including tech, manufacturing, agriculture, food service, retail, transportation, logistics and hospitality. For organizations to invest in AI, the solution must represent high feasibility and business value. If you understand where and how to get an ROI, you will be in high demand.
Low Utilization? Expect Scrutiny
How often do you answer the company phone linked to your computer? Most would say rarely. Companies often spend millions of dollars providing their employees with tools that they don’t use, and they only reevaluate utilization under special circumstances, like an economic downturn.
Kristy says companies will start scrutinizing capital expenditures and invest in technology that offers efficiency gains. The focus will be on solutions that help them drive revenue and customer retention.
Data Is the New Currency
Say it a little louder for the people in the back. Business insights based on data collection have significant value for the organization. Time is no longer the most important currency—data collected to make effective use of time should be the focus of every department in every organization.
In service and support sales organizations, the reason codes noting why people call into the business are human influenced and not consistently accurate. One of our Sales Partners has a cruise line customer that was leveraging sentiment analysis in real-time while transcribing calls for quality monitoring of staff.
What the customer didn’t realize is how much value the insights from this analysis would have for their Sales and Marketing teams. Their Marketing team looked at the data and made three insights based on the reasons why most people call. The customers were calling to ask about:
- The terms and conditions for trip rescheduling
- What cabin upgrades are available
- What drink packages are available
In summary, they discovered there were cross-sell and up-sell opportunities that could drive revenue generation for the company. These insights provide examples of how companies can be more competitive. The future phase of richer customer experience and engagement could be sending text messages to promote the cost of potential upgrades or, even better and more lucrative, provide customers with meta experiences to explore room accommodation options for upgrades.
Kristy’s Final Takeaways
- Companies will start to look at the utilization and adoption of procured services more than ever. CX suppliers will differentiate themselves in the marketplace if they take a partnership approach with customers by solving, rather than selling.
- Humanizing and personalizing the employee and customer experience will be the success factor of leveraging AI.
- Leveraging data insights to understand why customers are calling and what the true time to resolution is will emerge to become a competitive differentiator.
- Utilizing knowledge bases and communities to enable self-service is both KEY and KING.
If you want to take advantage of this opportunity, Kristy recommends scheduling QBRs immediately with your top three clients. In addition, she suggests that you talk to her about how to market your CX expertise with insights and trends that are relevant to your customers.
