Forecast and Insights on how AI will reshape CX (Part 1)
The Customer Experience world has continued evolving at breakneck speed in 2024, and there are no signs of it slowing down in the new year – quite the opposite, there will be significant expansion.
So where will we see AI’s impact on experience centers in 2025? What aspects will change? What is a must-know for companies to succeed in the CX/EX space?
Of course, the past two years were focused on AI as it has taken hold in the business world. The contact center space has arguably been the most frequent use case for generative AI and has felt its impact most significantly.
Let’s have a quick look at the major trends for this year.
Customers will start choosing AI agents over humans to troubleshoot simple problems.
With all technological transitions, there is a pushback period where most people believe the old way is the best way. Think back to the early online banking days; it was common to hear: “I’ll always prefer going to the bank.” People believed the old way was more secure and provided a better experience. There is no bank nowadays that does not support online and mobile banking. It has become the top choice for most bank-related transactions. Employees are still in brick and mortar branches to assist with more complex transactions, but the ease and accuracy of online banking has proven superior for many use cases.
Today, thanks to generative AI (Chatbot/Voicebots), a virtual agent is indistinguishable from a human with two remarkable exceptions: you are never on hold, and they always come back with an answer, usually the right one, right away.
In 2025, we will see a shift in consumer preferences as consumers will opt for AI agents over humans for simple tasks. This means that those brands failing to offer this as a contact center channel will be at a competitive disadvantage and might see some loyalty erosion.
Proactive outreach has the potential to enhance loyalty with a more comprehensive, AI-driven approach
Proactive outreach has never attained its potential, but this is about to change. As CX continues to integrate with more systems, there is an opportunity to reduce stress, save time, and increase loyalty. For example, today, airlines, hotel and car rental companies don’t talk to each other. Most car rental companies at airports ask for the customer’s flight data and that’s it. With that information and automated flows for initiative-taking actions, they have the opportunity to offer a far superior service. Say a flight is delayed, the car rental company could not only be aware of it, but also proactively notify the customer that they have delayed the rental pick-up time. It’s obvious and simple, but it has been overlooked by most services offered at least as far as we know.
Generative AI will improve the way governments operate
For public sector organizations, embracing generative AI presents a unique opportunity to act and improve public services quality, decrease operational efficiency and meet people’s and companies’ increasing expectations.
$1.75 billion per year in estimated productivity profit by 2033[1]
As with any other tool, generative AI implementation calls for thoughtful leaders, focused on their users’ needs and willing to leverage new opportunities.
Similarly, generative AI could usher in a new transformation wave for government operations. However, adoption has understandably been tentative as officials debate the appropriate safety barriers required to ensure security and reliability when using these tools. Nevertheless, early pilot studies in some governments and “upstream” innovations driven by individual employees and small teams are showing some promising results.
What’s being done at the public level?
Generative AI-driven chatbots are being trained to manage routine public and citizen queries and direct more complex queries to the right department.
Quickly extract insights from reports and data by identifying patterns and anomalies. In turn, these evidence-based insights can inform policymaking and even provide assessments of policy impacts.
Some governments are using internal chatbots to answer employee questions about department policies and find information created by other teams.
Closing Thoughts:
Contact centers platforms will continue evolving towards integrated and data-based ecosystems, empowering agents with improved tools and know-how, while optimizing customer self-service. AI-driven proactive outreach and focus on improving agents’ skills will help businesses foster brand loyalty in an increasingly competitive market. When appropriately leveraged, these trends promise a more fluent, efficient and customer-centered CX scenario for the next year.
Governments’ joint work continues being relevant since December 2023, where G7 leaders endorsed the “Global Political Framework of Hiroshima AI”[2]. This is the first International Framework including guiding principles and a Code of Conduct meant to promote safe, secure and trustworthy use of advanced AI systems.
We will continue talking about trends in our next post (Part 2).
[1] CG Global. “The public sector is poised for a $1.75 billion increase in annual productivity by 2033, driven by GenAI.”
[2] The Hiroshima AI Process. “About the Hiroshima AI Process”. https://www.soumu.go.jp/hiroshimaaiprocess/en/index.html.
Author:
Lic. Fernando Riedel
Voice and Collaboration Specialist
Cirion Technologies
fernando.riedel@ciriontechnologies.com
