Digital transformation and artificial intelligence: how customer care has changed
15 March 2023
SUMMARY
Customer care and digital transformation
The customer care has changed a great deal in recent years and has been affected by the digital transformation: modern voip communication media, social channels, automation, auto-responders and virtual assistants have radically revolutionized the universe of contact centers, expanding the number of communication channels available to companies and changing the customer service.
Currently on the market are solutions that combine machine learning and artificial intelligence so as to provide timely, prompt and personalized service to consumers. Chatbots, virtual assistants, and so-called “augmented” customer support tools are valuable aids for operators working in customer care, since they contribute to the efficiency of agents, who will have the opportunity to focus on higher-value activities.
Digital transformation has enabled companies to reduce some contact center costs, playing on scalability (critical for handling requests at times with high volumes of traffic) and allowing customers to act in self mode thanks to the intuitive support of a bot.
Digital transformation in the service of customer experience
The Digital transformation consists of the redefinition of processes, the introduction of automation (RPA Robotic Process Transformation), as well as the development of new products and services enabled by digitization.
Digital transformation rests on people, businesses and technologies: the integration of these three components enables the benefits of digital transformation to be fully realized within enterprises, making their operations digital and producing innovation focused on the customer experience.
The ultimate goal of digital transformation is to improve the customer experience by constantly offering innovative services and products, but also optimizing productivity and efficiency to meet demand.
Digital transformation for more efficient and effective customer service
There digital transformation of contact centers experienced its first step when a process of outsourcing was initiated, with the so-called outsourcing of customer service. INGO is a solution provider that has been providing value-added services for over twenty years, comprehensively, competently and comprehensively dealing with its clients’ project needs, such as customer service management for companies.
The second act of the digital transformation that has affected customer care occurred with the emergence of social channels, which changed the way we communicate with customers and offered one more channel than the canonical phone calls or e-mails. The third revolution, which is still going on and is having interesting developments, occurred with the virtual assistance services. Chatbots are automated response mechanisms that provide answers to customer questions, leveraging artificial intelligence models and machine learning in the most complex cases.
Automation is proving to be a valuable support for human operators. The new channels, brought progressively by digital transformation, should not replace the previous ones, but work alongside them to improve work and to offer even more optimal and comprehensive service to its customers. Research from the “CX Act Touchpoint Study” revealed that the quality of customers’ experiences has a direct impact on their trust in a brand: the probability of purchase increases by 50 percent in the case of first-contact problem resolution.
Digital transformation and omnichannel customer care:
A digital transformation process within companies, and one that also actively affects the contact center and customer care, must take into consideration omnichannel assistance (e.g. the XCALLY software allows customer requests from multiple channels to be handled through a single platform), The integration of new technologies with business systems (each operator must have certain tools available to meet customer demands), access to central management platforms so that they can take action on the customer’s situation.
A customer service digital tranformation project must therefore take a holistic approach and treat all channels equally, thus enabling users to enjoy real improvement due to the multiplication of communication channels. Research by the “Corporate Executive Board” found that only 16 percent of customers are “means-focused,” while 84 percent of customers are “ends-focused.”
A proper digital transformation of the customer center must Focus on customers, identifying their most frequent needs, questions and issues. You will need to assess your resources and prioritize the development of channels that meet customer needs, devising a plan that integrates the various channels (omnichannel) and provides operators with the same tools that enable customers to achieve the same result, regardless of the channel chosen.
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INGO, thanks to multichannel and technological innovations, is able to build specific projects for each company, following the process from the initial analysis phase to the implementation of integrated, scalable and modular omnichannel strategies. For over 20 years, Made in Italy at the service of the customer experience.
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